BAIL UPPED FOR SUSPECT IN POT CASE

A Judge Raises The Bond For Joseph Ratto, 66, To $150,000 For Marijuana
Cultivation Charges

PLEASANTON -- A Dublin man who police arrested with help from a San Ramon
Valley teacher and a tipster was jailed Wednesday after a judge upped his
bail on charges accusing him of growing nearly a dozen marijuana plants.

Joseph Ratto, 66, was taken to Santa Rita Jail after Judge Ronald Hyde
raised his bail to $150,000 from $25,000, citing two felony charges of
cultivating marijuana and possession of the drug for sale.

"This is a major, major, major deal," Hyde said during a hearing. "That's a
lot more than personal use."

Ratto, who pleaded not guilty Wednesday but later withdrew it, is scheduled
to be arraigned Friday.

The case began in September after a regular informant offered to tell
Dublin police about a local pot grower in exchange for some of the
confiscated drugs, according to a police report. When officers declined the
offer and again asked for information, the tipster requested $4,000 to
point detectives in the right direction, records showed.

Officers again turned down the proposal and the informant, who admitted to
stealing plants from the grower before, told them of a personal plan to
steal the plants and sell them on the street, records showed. Officers said
that was not the best idea and the location of the house in the 8100 block
of Hollanda Court was eventually revealed.

Police staked out the house and ultimately followed a woman who was seen
leaving. Officers stopped her for speeding on San Ramon Road, where the San
Ramon Valley teacher admitted to smoking marijuana earlier and having a
small amount of the drug in her car, a police report stated.

"I smoke marijuana about once a week because I don't drink and because I
like it," the 41-year-old woman said in a statement to police.

Ratto, who she told police was a former neighbor, grew marijuana and had
smoked it with her on several prior occasions, she said in court records.

Detectives went back to the house with a search warrant, discovering the
plants in the garage, a bedroom and elsewhere, records showed. Officers
also found a loaded .38-caliber revolver on an ironing board in a bedroom.

Ratto showed police an ID card from the Oakland Cannabis Buyers'
Cooperative and a prescription giving him permission to grow up to six
plants, police said in a report. He said he suffers from chronic nausea,
post-radiation therapy and chronic degenerative disc disease of the lumbar
spine, according to records.

A Berkeley doctor had signed a prescription for marijuana.

Police estimated the street value of the marijuana at as high as $171,000.