MARC EMERY PLEADS GUILTY

Pot Crusader Must Wait in Jail Until Aug. 27 for Sentence
Hearing

Marijuana activist Marc Emery pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
manufacture marijuana in a Seattle courtroom Monday, and must now wait
three months in a Washington jail to be sentenced.

Canada's self-proclaimed prince of pot was extradited to the U.S. two
weeks ago.

Emery, president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was arrested in 2005 for
selling marijuana seeds by mail to U.S. residents out of his Cannabis
Culture store in Vancouver.

Two of his employees were also arrested.

"Today, Marc Emery acknowledged that he broke the law," U.S. attorney
Jenny A. Durkan said, adding that 75 per cent of Emery's mail-order
seeds sales were to Americans.

"A five-year prison term will hold Emery accountable for his choice to
ignore the law."

U.S. prosecutors agreed on a five-year sentence in return for Emery's
guilty plea and two years' probation for his co-accused.

His wife, Jodie, said she and their supporters will try to get her
husband home to Canada to serve his sentence.

He can apply to do so once he has been convicted in the U.S., she
said.

He must first receive approval from both governments, she
added.

"That's the only thing we can do at this point," Jodie told The
Province on Monday.

Last weekend, she helped hold a rally in downtown Vancouver as part of
the Free Marc Emery campaign. She said her husband has been living in
a cell just over half-a-metre wide with no sunlight or fresh air, but
he is getting along with the other inmates.

She hopes to visit him next week, and until then, communicates with
him by phone and email.

"That's a lifesaver so far." Emery's sentencing hearing is set for
Aug. 27.

He remains at a federal detention centre in SeaTac Washington, about
20 kilometres south of Seattle.