MEDICAL POT GURU NO STRANGER TO LEGAL TROUBLES

MISSOULA - Medical marijuana guru Jason Christ, known for
in-your-face tactics that include smoking a bowl on the Capitol lawn
in Helena, appears to be just as confrontational in his business dealings.

In fact, those dealings made Christ well known - and not in a good
way - many in Missoula's business community dating back to 2008,
according to lawsuits, other legal actions and interviews.

People's unpleasant experiences with Christ involve everything from
alleged website hijacking and a lease dispute to a reported bomb
threat, and alleged stalking and death threats. During their divorce,
his wife twice sought and received restraining orders.

"I am quite afraid for my life," she wrote in neat, round script,
"because my husband, Jason Christ, is extremely dangerous. . He has a
long history of violent behavior."

Most of those contacted by the Missoulian about their encounters with
Christ either refused to comment or insisted upon anonymity, saying
they feared retaliation. Because the comments were so consistent
among a varied group of people, the Missoulian agreed to withhold their names.

"I have a family," said one. "This is a guy I don't want to push."

"Psychologically and socially unreasonable," said another.

Said a third: "He literally threatened to kill me and my children."

"Do you think I'm a scary guy?"

Christ posed the question, then took a long pull from the nozzle on
the big baggie attached to a vaporizer loaded with a strain of
marijuana labeled papaya, something he did every few minutes during
the course of an hour-and-a-half interview recently.

"I think anybody has the potential for anything," he added.

Running a $1.22 million-a-year medical marijuana business, he said,
involves "the survival of the fittest." It also involves a working
knowledge of the law, he said.

Christ started making a sort of hobby of the law long before he
launched the Montana Caregivers Network in Missoula and received the
city's first medical marijuana business license.

"Years ago, I started practicing law as a pro se litigant" - someone
who acts as his own counsel - he said, adding that he'd sued people
in New York City and elsewhere, mostly in landlord-tenant cases. "I
love the law," he said. "I love it!"

Missoula court records reflect Christ's involvement with the legal system.

In Christ's most recent encounter with the law, the Missoula Police
Department executed a search warrant on records for four of Christ's
phones after employees of a Verizon store complained of intimidation.
According to the application for the warrant, Christ called the store
on Aug. 18 about phone problems and said he wanted to talk with
someone who could help resolve them, "or he was going to come down
there and 'bomb the f-ing store.'"

The employee who got the call took the threat seriously, making a
report to Verizon Corporate Security. "On a scale of one to 10 where
one is completely calm and 10 is 'we need to evacuate,' he placed
Christ as a nine," according to the warrant application.

Missoula police checked the building and found no bomb. Nonetheless,
Verizon hired a guard for the store for the next two weeks and two
employees obtained protection orders against Christ.

"I don't waste my time making bomb threats," Christ said Friday,
accusing a Verizon manager of having employees write "false and
fraudulent documents." The manager, he said, is a good friend of a
rival medical marijuana caregiver who left town months ago.

The case was closed Sept. 17 and no charges were filed against
Christ. Contacted last week about the incident, the manager said
only, "That's over and done with. At this point, we've kind of moved forward."

In July, Christ was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly
conduct after a dust-up at a Missoula auto repair shop. Christ went
to the Automotive Clinic on Catlin Street, complained about work done
on his car, allegedly started to smoke marijuana and ripped an
automotive manual when employees complained, according to Missoula
police Sgt. Bob Bouchee. Last month, he pleaded guilty in Municipal
Court in connection with that case, and paid a $250 fine with a $101
surcharge. A charge of disorderly conduct was dismissed.

In June, Christ canceled one of his traveling "cannabis caravan"
clinics - infamous for signing up hundreds of new patients in a few
hours - to Lansing, Mich. Christ told the Lansing City Pulse it was
because he'd received a bomb threat.

On Friday, he said his was among a number of medical marijuana
businesses to receive such threats.

Christ also is involved in two ongoing lawsuits:

n Last month, three of his former employees alleged he ordered that
hundreds of applications for medical marijuana be falsified. The suit
also accuses Christ of verbally abusing employees, using company
funds for personal expenses, driving a company van while smoking
marijuana and creating a "hostile work environment" that essentially
forced the three workers to quit. They also said he spent company
money on groceries, car repairs and a trip to Hawaii.

Christ counters that their attorney, Chris Lindsey of Billings, is a
business rival. Lindsey is one of four partners in Montana Cannabis,
a Helena-based medical marijuana provider.

"I'm a threat," Christ said. "Those guys are my biggest competitors."

However, Montana Cannabis partners say they do not compete with
Christ because the company acts only as a supplier of medical
marijuana to patients.

n In March, Christ sued a rival Missoula medical marijuana business
and related garden supply shop, alleging they'd caused him to lose
access to online data.

Christ - who during his 2008 divorce listed only meager assets
(including shared ownership of a Ford Taurus worth $1,600) and a debt
of $28,000 in child support owed in the state of California - said in
his suit that Montana Caregivers Network generated approximately
$350,000 in revenues in February. He estimated losses due to website
disruption would total at least $2 million over the next year.

The response from Green Heart Caregivers - a sign in its lobby
advertises "Montana's Home of the Chronic" - and Paradise Gardens
Supply contends that Christ essentially hijacked their website after
they contracted with him to build one in exchange for gardening equipment.

In a January meeting, according to the counter-claim in that case,
Green Heart owner Jenna Wilkins said Christ told her, "If you are not
with me, you are against me." Both Wilkins and her attorney, Saul
Seyler of the Thiel law firm in Missoula, declined to comment.

Although Christ earlier railed about the suit filed against him by
his former employees, he said he couldn't talk about the Green Heart
case because it "wouldn't be ethical" to comment on an ongoing case.

The experiences alleged by Green Heart are similar to those detailed
in a 2008 lawsuit against Christ by Professional Property Management,
which alleges that Christ - contracted via his Big Sky Websites to
work on PPM's site - transferred its domain name to his own site. At
one point, PPM couldn't even access its own real estate listings,
according to the complaint.

The matter was settled out of court and Cory Laird, the attorney for
PPM, cited a confidentiality agreement in refusing to comment.

Likewise, attorney Dan Cederberg also refused to comment on the suit
filed last year by Christ against his client, William "Bill" Watkins.
In that case, Christ sought a preliminary injunction against Watkins
after he terminated Christ's lease on a Scott Street property, saying
Christ was growing hydroponic marijuana there. That case also was dismissed.

Nothing in that lease, Christ said Friday with a grin, actually
spelled out a prohibition against growing marijuana.

"Bill tried to kick my ass," he said. " ... He lost."

That landlord-tenant case was filed last Oct. 9, just 10 days before
the U.S. Justice Department announced it would no longer raid medical
marijuana distributors.

All around Montana, medical marijuana businesses began sprouting up
like the plant itself. The number of people obtaining medical
marijuana cards grew apace, and Christ and his Montana Caregivers
Network were responsible for many of those.

Christ claims to have signed up 80 percent of Montana's nearly 23,000
medical marijuana cardholders - a number that stood at 7,300 in January.

These days, nearly all of those folks sign up with the Montana
Caregivers Network online after meeting with a physician via Skype,
Christ said. The Montana Caregivers Network offers at least one, and
sometimes two, "teleclinics" nearly every day of the week.

Still, a handful of people sat Friday in the waiting area of the
Montana Caregivers office in the blue corner building at Front and
Orange streets. "Got Pain?" a sign in the window asks. Two leafy
marijuana plants sat in pots below it.

Christ said he's signed up 5,000 - "or maybe 10,000" cardholders
online since January, some from out-of-state.

In January, the 2011 Montana Legislature will meet in Helena, and
tackling Montana's freewheeling medical marijuana scene is on its agenda.

A subcommittee has worked for months to fashion proposals to tighten
controls on the 2004 voter initiative responsible for legalizing
marijuana for debilitating medical conditions.

Christ has already registered as a lobbyist for the session.

And he predicts that the Legislature will do exactly what he plans to
urge them to do when it comes to medical marijuana:

"Nothing."