WITNESSES TESTIFY IN FATHER-SON POT TRIAL

OROVILLE - Several people testified in court Tuesday that they were
members of a loosely organized "coalition" to grow medical marijuana.

The witnesses were called by the attorneys for a Concow man and his
father to counter charges the defendants were using California's
medical marijuana law as a cover to illegally sell pot.

"We were trying to provide access for people who couldn't get their
medicine. ... Nobody expressed that they wanted to sell marijuana,"
said Andrew Ringel, a member of the coalition.

He was one of about ten defense witnesses who are testifying under a
grant of immunity on behalf of Michael and Sean Kelly, whose rural
Concow property was twice raided by Butte County sheriff's officers
in late 2008 and June 2009.

A total of about 337 plants in various stages of growth were seized
during the two busts.

Butte County Assistant District Attorney Helen Harberts had initially
granted immunity to only two civilian witnesses, who claimed they did
not know how their medical marijuana scripts wound up at the Concow
grow sites.

Michael Kelly's lawyer, Jodea Foster, objected Monday that the
prosecutor was effectively preventing him from proving the existence
of the medical marijuana coalition, and requested Judge William Lamb
to grant immunity to the defense witnesses on his own.

That became unnecessary when Harberts announced Tuesday morning that
she was concerned about "the state of the record," and authorized
immunity from prosecution to virtually every witness in the case.

Several individuals testified that they participated to some extent
in the planting and tending of a 35-plant medical marijuana garden
during the summer of 2008 on the Kellys' Piute Drive residence in
Concow.

One man who described himself as a "mental patient" conceded he was
unable to contribute either physical labor or money to the effort.

Roger Dykes, who said he had undergone surgery for a serious back
injury, told the jury he gave his daughter's boyfriend his medical
marijuana script, asking him to "put in six plants for me."

Dykes said he had only met Michael Kelly "a couple of times," and
conceded there was never any discussion about reimbursing anyone for
his marijuana.

But most of the others called by the defense testified they actively
participated in the cultivation process as members of a lawful coalition.

"Mike Kelly was doing us a favor in letting him use his property to
get our medicine," said Joseph Black, who testified to supplying his
own soil and tending his six plants.

Jacob Moore told the jury that he and his father were involved in the
cultivation of six medical marijuana plants apiece on the Piute Drive
site. He said he saw as many as seven others working the garden at
various times there that summer.

Moore said that he and his dad had visited the grow site only a
couple days before sheriff's detectives uprooted the plants on Oct.
20, 2008.

When officers returned the next June, they found a couple hundred
immature pot plants and "clones" at the Piute property and a second
site on Jordan Hill Road where Mike Kelly had lived prior to it being
destroyed during a mid-summer 2008 wildfire.

Harberts pointed out that officers had seized all the medical
marijuana scripts during the first bust and asked how Moore's script
ended up being posted at one of the two gardens raided the following
June.

The witness remembered having "some discussion" with Michael Kelly
about replanting that spring, but "it was never set in stone."

Fellow coalition member Andrew Ringel said he had known the younger
Kelly since childhood.

He estimated there had been as many as 15 members in the Concow
medical marijuana coalition.

"We all knew patients were having difficulty getting pot. ... We were
trying to put together some good people, it was not super organized;
there wasn't any clear ideas of what each person would do," Ringel
told the jury.

After their first garden was raided, he said the group got "scared,"
and that the subsequent year's grows were much more structured and
tightly controlled in a vain effort to steer clear of the law.

Under questioning by Sean Kelly's attorney, Robert Radcliffe, Ringel
insisted that neither he nor anybody else in the group ever mentioned
selling marijuana for profit.

"I didn't see anything illegal; there were 99 plants being grown
around us," Ringel told the jury.

The younger Kelly has asserted that police targeted their property
after a Butte County jury had acquitted him of identical marijuana
cultivation and possession for sale charges in 2003.

The current trial is in recess today and could go to jury as early as
Thursday.