PROBABLE CAUSE?

Search-Warrant Affidavits Give Insight into Sting Operation on Local
Collectives-and in Many Cases the Evidence Appears Flimsy

Remember back in June, when the sheriff called in law-enforcement help
from all over the North State to raid eight local medical-marijuana
dispensaries and their owners' homes? Well, the search-warrant
affidavits have finally been unsealed, and what they reveal is
extremely interesting.

For one, they explain exactly how the Butte County Sheriff's Office
conducted its sting operation on local cooperatives.

Second, they explain how deputies discovered the identities of the
people who own and/or run those cooperatives.

And third, they give reasons why search warrants were
needed.

In Dylan Tellesen's case, those explanations are especially
disturbing. What most bothers him and his wife, Hilary-aside from the
fact that they were in no way connected to any of the cooperatives-is
that in an effort to secure a search warrant officers placed a GPS
tracker on his vehicle.

"It's a very questionable tactic for law enforcement, especially
without a warrant," Dylan Tellesen said during a recent interview just
minutes after reading the affidavit for the first time.

The affidavit that includes Tellesen is linked to CPC, which the
Sheriff's Office erroneously identifies as Citizen Patient Collective
(a quick Google search reveals it actually stands for California
Patients Collective, a group that at the time had operations in
Redding and Chico).

Tellesen has been outspoken about his plans for a place called Citizen
Collective, meeting with Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney, City Council
members, even Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey to make sure
he does everything legitimately. He was quoted in this paper more than
a year ago clearly stating he would not open up shop until an
ordinance was in place. That article ("The Citizen Collective," Oct.
29, 2009) is also quoted in the affidavit that links Tellesen to CPC.

"It's alarming, given my situation. There's so much information about
me that's public," Tellesen said. "I met with Mike Ramsey and we
talked for 90 minutes. He had my business card, and it looked nothing
like CPC."

Ramsey is widely considered the mastermind behind the sting
operations, something the affidavits bear out.

When asked how they determined CPC stood for "Citizen Patient
Collective," both Jacob Hancock, the former deputy sheriff who penned
the affidavits and now works in the DA's Office, and Sgt. Steve
Collins of the Special Enforcement Unit that oversaw the raid,
declined to comment. They also declined to comment on the practice of
using GPS trackers during investigations except to confirm their use.

The GPS topic is a timely one, considering it's come before several
courts this year. In August, the federal Court of Appeals for
Washington, D.C., decided on a case involving the use of a GPS tracker
on a person's vehicle without a warrant, deeming it an infringement on
the suspect's Fourth Amendment rights.

Part of the court's explanation references California's laws and
reads: "[T]he Legislature of California, in making it unlawful for
anyone but a law enforcement agency to 'use an electronic tracking
device to determine the location or movement of a person,'
specifically declared 'electronic tracking of a person's location
without that person's knowledge violates that person's reasonable
expectation of privacy,' and implicitly but necessarily thereby
required a warrant for police use of a GPS."

Tellesen wasn't the only one who was tracked using a GPS device. But
he does appear to be the only person searched who was never seen in or
near the collective he supposedly owned. He said he definitely felt
his privacy was violated.

The sting operation, which began May 11 and continued through the end
of the month, involved four different attempts at buying marijuana
from each collective. The first was with no recommendation. The only
collective that appears to have sold to the agent without a
recommendation was CPC.

The second agent went in with a fraudulent recommendation, created on
a computer, with a phone number that went to a non-answering phone at
the Chico Police Department. Just one collective, Scripts Only
Service, sold marijuana to this agent.

The third undercover officer presented a valid recommendation on which
the name had been altered. When every collective checked with the
doctor's office, however, the office validated only the recommendation
number, not the name associated with it. So, every collective allowed
this officer to buy medical marijuana.

The fourth and final officer had a valid recommendation for himself
and, unsurprisingly, was granted access to every collective.

While the aforementioned officers were inside each collective-they did
not necessarily go into each location in the order listed-they took
note of the employees, the clientele, the marijuana on offer and in
most instances asked about the owner and whether the collective would
buy marijuana from a nonmember. In this way, they collected
information about each place.

With the information from the sting, Hancock, who wrote each
affidavit, requested a search warrant from the judge based on the
evidence. In every case, he wrote, "... sales are being made to
persons with fraudulent recommendations, and there is total non
compliance with verification of the authenticity of the
recommendations in several instances set forth above."

This statement ruffled the feathers of Robert Galia, who runs North
Valley Holistic Health.

"How can you sit there and conclude that 'as seen from the many
instances set forth above' we were in 'total noncompliance with
standard verification procedures,' when all of the examples clearly
showed that we were in fact turning these professional con artists out
by their ear?" he told the CN&R.

Following the sting operation, the officers-with help from the Butte
Interagency Narcotics Task Force-did surveillance on the collectives
in order to determine the owners/CEOs. In most cases, vehicles were
spotted outside the collectives several days in a row, and the DMV
photographs of the drivers of those vehicles were matched with intel
from the officers who had met those people inside the collectives. In
most cases, the homes of those people were also watched, and some of
them were followed for several hours as they drove around.

In Tellesen's and one other case, however, officers used a GPS tracker
to monitor where they went. The other case was connected to Northern
California Herbal Collective, and the GPS tracked movement between the
man's home and the area of the collective over several days.

Tellesen, on the other hand, drove to Butte College-where he was
teaching summer school-and then Redding, where he had been
commissioned to paint a mural.

"The fact that a CPC employee stated the owner of CPC was in Redding,
California and the fact that I independently obtained information that
Dylan Tellesen's vehicle was in Redding, California further shows that
Dylan Tellesen is the owner of CPC," reads the affidavit. "... [a
deputy] located a local news article that states Dylan Tellesen works
at Butte College. ... The aforementioned information and the fact
Dylan Tellesen traveled to Butte College further shows that Dylan
Tellesen is the owner of CPC."

Tellesen laughed after reading that statement.

"I work at Butte College, therefore I own CPC?" he said in
disbelief.

Both Tellesen and Galia find the information in their respective
affidavits ridiculous, especially since no arrests have yet been made
in connection with the raids.

"This document was, from its inception, crafted with the sole intent
of misleading and tricking a judge into signing a warrant," Galia
said. "What's laughable here is that no cannabis user would bother to
try to forge a document-they are too easy to get!"

For Tellesen, the issue goes even further, since he was in no way
connected to CPC but he and his family were subjected to a police
search nonetheless. In fact, one employee at CPC, according to the
affidavit, named the owner as "Will," not Dylan, yet no further
investigation appears to have been done (although Collins assured this
reporter that "Will" is being investigated).

"I committed no crime. I gave them no probable cause," said Tellesen,
adding that he wished he had a lawyer. "It's scary to be a part of it,
but it's also scary for everybody in this county-especially anyone who
is an outspoken advocate for something the DA doesn't agree with."