LEPP ARRAIGNED IN FEDERAL COURT

Upper Lake -- Released on his own recognizance by federal authorities,
medical marijuana grower Eddy Lepp returned to a full house and empty
fields Thursday night.

Lepp was in a San Francisco federal court Thursday. He was arraigned on
charges that are presumed to be possession of marijuana with intent to
distribute.

"He has talked to an attorney (believed to be Dennis Robbie of Oakland) and
they are processing him out of the Federal Court Building in San Francisco
as we speak," Lepp's wife, Linda, told a Record-Bee reporter at the
couple's Upper Lake home at about 5 p.m. Thursday.

"He was released O.R. and we have somebody on the way down to pick him up."

Linda Lepp had a crowd of people around her in the living room as she
spoke. Several were among the dozen who were arrested along with Lepp early
Wednesday by federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials and
Lake County sheriff's deputies who went to the couple's hilltop house.
Others were patients dependent on the marijuana grown by Lepp. Still others
were among Lepp's oldest and best friends.

More people were on the edge of Highway 20 down the hill from Lepp's house,
picketing, protesting and shouting good naturedly at motorists. The healthy
stand of marijuana across the fence from the protesters had been reduced to
stubble.

Yet more people, said Linda Lepp, picketed in the Federal Building in San
Francisco protesting against the laying to waste of Lepp's crop.

Gain Chao, a senior at Upper Lake High School, wondered about actions of a
day earlier when officers stormed in on the field bordering the patch where
her family grows the strawberries it sells at its roadside stand. Lepp, she
said, seemed "really nice" the one time she met him.

"Just like the horses on the field on the other side, it (marijuana)
doesn't bother us at all," she said. "But Eddy told me once he had to have
nine guards every night."

Jeff Watt, a volunteer at Lepp's ministry who said he recently came down
from Oregon, was one of those arrested at Lepp's home Wednesday.

"I just got out of jail today. Everyone else got out yesterday," he said.
"They told me I was getting arrested for selling and distributing. Then, my
release paper said for intoxication only.

"No, I had not been drinking," Watt added. "There's no alcohol allowed on
the premises. They can't pin anything on us because we're all volunteers. I
get room and board. I can't even afford shoes for myself."

Watt said Lepp was cooperative with the federal officials who came to his
home, "but they tackled him anyway, pinned his arms behind his back and
handcuffed him."

Linda Lepp said the raid might have been prevented if the couple had
obtained an injunction against such actions.

"Personally, I think what prompted this is we didn't have an injunction in
our paperwork from when they did this in 2002," she said.

"We need to finally get to court to have a judge say yes or no whether they
(DEA) have the jurisdiction to do this to medical marijuana in our state.
We're supposed to be there (in court) Thursday (Aug. 26) and they did this
to hurt him."

Linda barely escaped arrest herself. She was sleeping elsewhere for health
reasons when her cell phone rang. It was Eddy, calling to tell her to stay
away from the house. He didn't get the chance to say that. But he didn't
need to. Linda got the message when she heard one of the officers who came
into the house barking orders.

Lepp's position all along is that the marijuana grown in his fields is not
his, but that of ill people who need it.

"I don't know how many, but I think it's in the thousands of people who are
not going to have their medication and will end up back on alcohol and
those (expletive) pills," said Linda.

"I'm extremely mad because they're turning our healing fields into killing
fields."