CONCOW MAN INSISTS HE AND HIS DAD WERE PART OF LAWFUL MEDICAL POT
COLLECTIVE

OROVILLE -- A Concow man accused of growing pot for sale with his
father took the witness stand Thursday to insist they were part of a
lawful 16-member medical marijuana collective.

Characterizing himself as a "cannabis consultant," Michael Edmond
Kelly, 29, told the Butte County Superior Court jury that he and his
father, Sean Kelly, 57, helped put the organization together to help
sick people get access to their medicine, not to make a profit.

"This was a family collective, fathers and sons caring for one
another; That's what America is all about," the defendant said.

It is the second such trial for the younger Kelly, who was acquitted
in 2003 by another Butte County jury on identical charges, which
involved a different grow.

Kelly was twice re-arrested in October 2008 and June 2009, after
sheriff's officers raided two separate grow sites on property in
Concow the father and son owned or rented.

About 35 mature marijuana plants were seized during the first raid on
Piute Drive. During the second bust, an additional 377 seedlings or
clones were reportedly found both there and at a second would-be grow
site owned by Michael Kelly off Jordan Hill Road.

During the Kellys' two week jury trial, several members of the
purported collective testified, under a grant of immunity for the
defense, that they were asked by the father and son to contribute
either labor or money to the effort in return for getting a share of
the medical marijuana.

Two people called by the prosecutor insisted they did not know how
their medical marijuana prescriptions ended up among those found on
the Kelly property.

An Oroville woman who suffers from breast cancer told the jury
Thursday that she and her partner had a friend deliver their
prescriptions along with a signed "caretaker's contract" to Michael
Kelly, but their car broke down before they could meet with him to
discuss their specific level of involvement in the grow.

One of the defense witnesses in court Thursday wore a T-shirt
proclaiming: "It's all fun and games until the cops show up."

Sheriff's Detective Jacob Hancock quoted Michael Kelly as saying that
he planned to sell any "excess" marijuana not used by the collective
to a private cannabis club.

"He's a liar," the defendant retorted on the witness stand
Thursday.

Under questioning by his lawyer, Jodea Foster, the younger Kelly said
that during the first bust the detective observed: "You have a lot of
dope here, what do you plan to do with the excess?

The defendant claims he angrily replied that "someone" would probably
take any leftover plants to a cannabis club to reimburse the group
for their expenses.

But he insisted at no time was there any discussions among the
collective members to sell the marijuana for profit.

Michael Kelly also said he never intended for the collective to grow
so large, but after it was set up, more people gave him with their
medical marijuana prescriptions and asked to be able to grow pot on
the Kelly's property .

The younger Kelly said he had been forced to move in with his dad
after a wildfire in July 2008 burned down his own home on Jordan Hill
Road.

He said most of the collective members took an active part as the
"labor force" in cultivating the marijuana. A few provided money,
soil or other services.

During the police raids, officers said they found multiple medical
marijuana prescriptions either posted at the two grow sites, or in
folders inside the defendant's Piute Drive residence.

Michael Kelly told the jury that about a dozen prescriptions, which
he kept in a manila folder, belonged to people he considered to be
"part of our collective," some of whom, he said, helped to create
clones from the group's plants so they could grow medical marijuana
on their own property.

A second batch of prescriptions located in a green colored folder,
Kelly testified, were from people "trying to join our collective so
they could rent our land to farm on."

As soon as he got out of jail after the first raid, the defendant
said the members of the collective decided to go ahead with plans to
replant the following spring, only to be busted again before they
could get the new clones into the ground.

"They stole my medicine ... I was terrorized," the younger Kelly told
the jury Thursday, adding: "I still can't figure out what I did that
was wrong."

Assistant District Attorney Helen Harberts was unable to complete her
cross-examination before Judge William Lamb recessed the trial until
Monday.

Earlier Thursday, the judge had to replace one male juror with an
alternate after the juror stated that extending the trial beyond this
week created a financial hardship for him.