A San Jose attorney says the Gilroy Police Department Anti Crime Team ignored provisions in the Medical Marijuana Program Act when officers raided a sophisticated, 6,000 square foot indoor pot garden Sunday in an industrial building on the 5900 block of Obata Way in Gilroy.
The four men arrested at the scene – Harry Sorensen, 69; his son, Harry M. Sorensen, 44; Daniel A. Genovese, 37; all of San Jose, and Theodore J. Borns, 56, of Campbell have been charged by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for illegal cultivation of marijuana. All of the men are no longer in custody, according to Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jose Cardoza. They are all due back at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill at 9 a.m. March 15.
The lawyer representing all four suspects, Jim Roberts of Roberts and Elliot, says the GPD unlawfully raided a legitimate collective that was growing medical marijuana for a legal dispensary called the San Jose Patient’s Group, located at 824 The Alameda in San Jose. Calls to the San Jose Patient’s Group for comment were not returned.
Roberts says that all the marijuana plants were tagged with patient information and possessed all the necessary paperwork to be classified as a legal collective grow, and that the Gilroy PD went against established protocol by raiding the place without examining the evidence.
In light of these facts, “it will be surprising if any charges are filed at all,” he speculates. “This wasn’t the raid of some site that is illegal, in any fashion or form.”
Gilroy Police Sgt. Joseph Deras of the Anti-Crime Team lead the raid on Obata Way, but refused to answer any questions about the endeavor or whether the grow appeared to be a legal.
“Charges were filed. These cases take a lot of man hours to put together, they are very complex,” he remarked before directing any questions about the case to the DA’s Office.
Gilroy Chief of Police Denise Turner admits she was unaware that the raid was going to take place until a text notified her Sunday afternoon, but that this isn’t uncommon due to the high number of pot busts that take place in Gilroy. Turner explained that members of the Anti Crime team would work with their ranking officers, DA’s Office and a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge to have a search warrant signed.
“There had to be probable cause. They must have done their research,” she added.
As of Wednesday, a prosecutor has not been assigned to the case and “no one from our office has seen anything about it,” said Supervising South County District Attorney Steve Lowney.
When the case does come across the DA’s desk, Roberts is certain authorities will see the Obata Way site in Gilroy “was a lawful grow operation and it’s clear that it was.”
However, Turner sees the technicalities of the law in a very different way.
“If they want to try and dress it up like that, they will lose,” she warned. Turner points to the fact that the City of Gilroy still has the final say on what types of businesses can operate within it. Medical marijuana dispensaries and collective pot grows are not allowed, and courts have found in favor of Gilroy when the City’s stance has been challenged, she stated, referring to the short-lived Medileaf club that was ordered to shut down in 2009.
Roberts argues his four clients were doing nothing illegal under the provision of California Senate Bill 420, which was passed by the California State Legislature and signed into law by then Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. The provision expanded the protections offered by California Proposition 215 – or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, as it sometimes known. SB 420 specifically recognizes the right of patients and caregivers to associate collectively or cooperatively to cultivate medical marijuana, the provision states. Collective growers can have either six mature plants or 12 immature plants per patient, along with eight ounces of dried cannabis per patient.
These requirements, Roberts insists, were being met at the collective grow on Obata Way.
Turner once again points to the fact that collective grows are not a permitted business use in the City of Gilroy, and the City’s right to regulate its own business licenses trounces the Medical Marijuana Program Act in criminal court. Turner is fully aware of the law that Roberts is claiming will protect his clients, but is adamant that it doesn’t apply in this case.
“If someone has a medical marijuana card and they want to grow a few plants in the house, then we will come around to make sure that they are staying within the law,” explained Turner. “That was not the case here, this was an industrial grow operation.”
Roberts also claims police were grossly incorrect in a GPD press release sent Monday, which stated officers seized a total of nearly 250 pounds of “useable” pot.
“The drying process will bring the weight of the marijuana down to around 15 pounds,” he countered.
GPD Sgt. Pedro Espinoza calls Roberts’ estimation of the final weight, “just a matter of speculation.”
Roberts said evidence of the collective being a legal one was abundantly clear – so obvious, in fact, that it should have made the GPD pause and consider whether to “rip this place apart or ask ‘what’s going on?’”
“Every single plant was tagged in there with a patient’s number,” he claimed. Roberts was able to provide one photo, taken prior to the raid he said, that shows plants with identifying tags around their stems. He added that there was also a picture of every corresponding patient hanging on the walls, in full view of the officers.
GPD also has photos of the crime scene, according to Sgt. Pedro Espinoza. But, unlike numerous past instances where officers snap evidential photographs of clandestine pot grows and then release them to the media – the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department does this on a regular basis – Gilroy police declined to release any pictures they took at the Obata Way site.
Sgt. Espinoza declined the Dispatch’s request for photos and said the request would have to go through the DA’s Office after all of the paperwork had been handed over to prosecutors.
Officers first became aware of possible illegal activity at the grey-paneled, nondescript industrial building located on Obata Way when concerned community members and business owners alerted them to the existence of a possible indoor marijuana grow. Observers said there were no outward signs connecting the L-shaped building to the medical marijuana trade. Detectives then launched an investigation, confirmed the tips they had received and presented the evidence to a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge, who authorized a search warrant.
Giovana Martin, 19, works at the Fastenal Company located on the same block of buildings as the grow site, kitty corner to the premises occupied by Heinzen Manufacturing International on Mayock Road.
“It smelled like skunk around here,” she said, referring to the odor often emanating from the grow site.
In fact, the aroma was occasionally so intense that customers would come in and ask Martin and her coworkers if they were smoking weed.
So convincing was the lack of activity surrounding the grow site, however, that Martin thought it was empty and available for rent.
“I never knew,” she added, while gazing at the blacked-out windows of the grow site.
Another business owner on the same block, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed with Martin.
“We never saw them here,” he said.
For people engaged in grow sites, even “legal” ones such as the garden on Obata Way, the ability to hide in plain sight is of paramount importance and nothing unusual, Roberts explained.
Medical marijuana collectives face a two-pronged threat from law enforcement officials who confuse the legal grows with illegal ones, and criminals looking to rip them off for their crops, said Roberts.
“All grow sites have security issues. They’re not publicized,” he explained.
Roberts explained that medical marijuana collectives are allowed to operate under the Medical Marijuana Program Act – the colloquial name for California Senate Bill 420 – but the law is foggy about the exact things a collective must do to comply. As long as the plant per patient ratio is adhered to, nothing else is required, he said.
“Possession and cultivation of marijuana is no longer, per se, illegal in California if you comply with the rules,” stated Roberts.
Most collectives make an effort to stay within the boundaries of the soft-edged law by following a list of best practices, he added.
The set of rules within the Medical Marijuana Program Act detail everything a collective should do to mitigate the chances of prosecution. According to Roberts, the Obata Way grow operation allegedly had a list of best practices posted to the wall when the Gilroy PD arrived. The fact the Anti-Crime Team ignored all of the paperwork and tagging of plants and continued with the raid is unusual, he said.
“They made no effort to ask any questions whatsoever,” he asserted.
