SMOKE SCREEN

Medical Pot Activist Says His Crop Is Legal, The Bust Is Suspect

Medical marijuana activist Martin Victor will have his day in court
tomorrow-- 251 days after Riverside County Sheriff's deputies raided
his cannabis collective and 248 days after he was scheduled to
contradict a former deputy reserve officer on the witness stand.

Victor, who grows pot for medicinal use on his Temecula property, was
set to testify Sept. 22, 2008, as a defense witness in the battery
trial of fellow medical marijuana activist Lanny Swerdlow. He almost
didn't get the chance. Three days before his scheduled testimony,
about a dozen deputies raided the Palmetto Way home Victor shared with
wife, LaVonne and her 81-year-old mother.

Saying they'd received complaints about the smell of pot emanating
from the property, officials reportedly seized more than 50 plants, 5
pounds of dried bud and other items, and arrested Victor before
finally leaving at about 2:30AM the next day.

Victor was held at the Southwest Detention Center overnight before
being released on $50,000 bail, says his attorney, Zenia Gilg. Seven
months later, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office in April
charged Victor, 57, with two felony counts: cultivation of marijuana
and possession of marijuana for sale. He is scheduled to be arraigned
Friday, May 22.

Gilg says the timing of the raid strikes her as a little too
coincidental.

It does seem very suspicious," she says. "He was scheduled to testify
on Monday. They came in the Friday before, arrested him and gave him
$50,000 bail, which seems a little high for a marijuana case,
especially when they weren't ready to file charges. I don't want to
make false accusations, but it's very suspicious."

Other details of the raid were also unusual. Deputies told reporters
in September that they acted after receiving complaints from the
Victors' neighbors regarding the smell of marijuana emanating from the
property, and that the collective's backyard was spotted by helicopter
surveillance. But authorities had for years known of the couple's
activities--they were well known in the IE as medical marijuana
activists and collective operators.

Victor says that numerous times prior to the raid he had requested and
received information from county officials on how to ensure the
collective was compliant with state guidelines on legal marijuana
cultivation. All 10 members of the collective held state-issued
medical cannabis ID cards. More revealingly, the Victors' Temecula
home had already been raided by authorities in 2002--an episode that
resulted in one of the first medical marijuana trials in California
following the passage of Proposition 215, the 1996 law that legalized
cannabis for medicinal use.

As to the alleged complaints from neighbors, Marty Victor
laughs.

Every time a neighbor would move on this block, we'd go and tell them
exactly what we were doing here," he says. "We'd knock on their doors
and say, 'This is what we do here, just so you know.'"

Calls to the DA's office for comment were referred to the Temecula
public information office of the Riverside County Sheriff's
Department, which referred calls back to the DA.

Victor says he's convinced the September raid was an effort to prevent
him from testifying in Swerdlow's defense. Swerdlow was arrested in
2007 on charges he shoved Paul Chabot, co-founder of the Inland Valley
Drug Free Community Coalition, at a coalition meeting in Rancho
Cucamonga. Chabot is a former San Bernardino sheriff's reserve deputy
once assigned to the department's narcotics division. Victor was with
Swerdlow at the meeting and says Swerdlow never shoved Chabot, as
Chabot claimed.

I believe [Riverside sheriff's authorities] thought Marty wouldn't be
able to make bail and not be able to make the trial," Swerdlow says.
"It was just too coincidental."

Victor was able to make the trial--Swerdlow bailed him out of jail the
day after the raid. Swerdlow was ultimately acquitted of the charges.

Now Victor, the only member of the Temecula collective charged in
connection with the raid, is anxious for his own day in court.
Attorney Gilg says her client can prove he was fully compliant all
medical marijuana guidelines. He had security cameras and alarms, he
kept the crop secured in a 10-foot-high chain-link cage with a
tamper-proof lock on it. He registered his activities as required by
law.

I'm very confident we'll be able to establish that Marty was following
those guidelines to the letter and that everything was in compliance,"
Gilg says. "I'm also hoping that we'll be able to use this case to
convince the DA's office to use the limited funds available in the
state right now to prosecute actual crimes, and not people who are
simply following California law."