Rosenthal.. Here We Go Again!

[Pinch]

Oakland marijuana author Ed Rosenthal -- who was facing a retrial on cultivation charges -- was hit with nearly a dozen new charges including money laundering and tax evasion in a superseding indictment issued by a federal grand jury in San Francisco Thursday.

Rosenthal, 61, a medical marijuana advocate and author of 13 books about marijuana, is scheduled to be arraigned on the superseding indictment before U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth LaPorte in San Francisco on Monday.

Rosenthal's not-yet-scheduled trial on the expanded charges, now totaling 14 counts, will be held in the court of U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the same judge who presided over his previous trial in 2003.

Rosenthal was convicted in the earlier trial of three felony counts related to the alleged supplying of marijuana to the now-defunct Harm Reduction Center at 52 Sixth St. in San Francisco. He was sentenced to one day in prison.

But in April, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction because of juror misconduct in his trial. That ruling paved the way for a retrial, which had been scheduled before Breyer next month.

Rosenthal's attorney, William Simpich, said the retrial will probably be postponed for several months because of the added charges.

Simpich charged that the superseding indictment was the result of "a fishing expedition" by prosecutors.

He said, "The government's just digging itself in deeper. They have no case against Ed Rosenthal that's moral and right. That's what the second trial will expose."

The superseding indictment replaces a 2002 indictment and adds 11 new charges to the original three cultivation and conspiracy counts against Rosenthal. The new counts include two more marijuana-related charges, four counts of laundering money from alleged marijuana profits and five counts of filing false tax returns and false amended returns by failing to include marijuana income for the years 1999 through 2001.

The indictment also includes charges against Kenneth Hayes, the alleged former executive director of the Harm Reduction Center, and Richard Watts, an alleged employee.

Rosenthal claimed outside his first trial that he was growing starter plants for patients under a California law that permits seriously ill people to use medical marijuana. But Breyer did not allow him to cite the California measure as a defense because federal drug law makes no exception for the state law.

Breyer sentenced Rosenthal to only one day in jail, however, on the ground that Rosenthal had mistakenly but reasonably believed that Oakland had named him as an agent to help carry out its medical marijuana program.

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