Freaktan
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A U.S. Army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution because he grew marijuana to help control chronic pain was yanked from a hospital by Canadian authorities, driven to the U.S. border with a catheter still attached, and turned over to U.S. officials - who provided him with no medical treatment for five days, his lawyer said.
Steven William Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when he shuffled into U.S. District Court for a detention hearing Wednesday, said his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. Donohue ordered Tuck temporarily released so that Hiatt and Sunil Aggarwal, the president of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, could take him to Harborview Medical Center for treatment.
"The guy comes into the jail with a catheter sticking out the end of his (penis), you'd think they'd do something about it!" Hiatt said, launching into a profanity-laced tirade after the hearing. "This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days for no reason."
However, by the time Donohoe issued his order releasing Tuck, King County Jail officials had received a detainment request from Humboldt County, Calif., officials, so he was not released Wednesday, Hiatt said.
"I can't believe we've run into another snag here," the lawyer added.
Tuck is charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and Donohue ordered his release on the condition that he face the charge in the Northern District of California upon his release from the hospital. The U.S. attorney's office in Seattle did not oppose that release.
But he also faces prosecution in state court in Humboldt County.
Tuck is a veteran who said he suffered debilitating injuries in the late 1980s, when his parachute failed to open during a jump. He spent a year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center undergoing surgeries to fuse discs in his back, Hiatt said. His injuries were exacerbated in a car crash that killed his brother-in-law in 1990; over the years, he has had more than a dozen surgeries, his friends said.
In 2001, he was living in McKinleyville, Calif., when his marijuana grow operation was raided for the second time. He fled to British Columbia to avoid prosecution, and sought asylum status, which was recently denied.
Last Friday, he checked himself in to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, because he had a cyst on his prostate and was having difficulty urinating, Hiatt said.
In a phone interview from Vancouver, Richard Cowan, a friend of Tuck's who runs the Web site marijuananews.com, said he was with Tuck at the hospital when Canadian authorities arrived and arrested Tuck on a departure order.
"I would not believe it unless I had seen it," Cowan said. "They sent people in to arrest him while he was on a gurney. They took him out of the hospital in handcuffs, put him in an SUV, and drove him to the border."
He was turned over to Whatcom County Jail officials, who, after being flooded with phone calls from activists, called federal marshals from Seattle to pick him up. The marshals brought him to the King County Jail in downtown Seattle.
Though Tuck had taken morphine - as prescribed by doctors - for about 16 years to help with his pain, he was given no painkiller or treatment at the jail other than ibuprofen, Hiatt said. Tuck, who appeared emaciated as he cried in court Wednesday, has been sick from the morphine withdrawal, Hiatt said.
King County Jail Capt. Roberta Johnson said Wednesday night that jail officials had tried unsuccessfully to contact officials in California about releasing Tuck but that they could not obtain proper authority after business hours. She declined to comment on whether he had received medical care Wednesday night but noted the jail has health staff available 24 hours a day.
A spokesman with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver said he could not immediately comment on the case.
Newshawk: Freaktan - 420Times.com
Source: Seattle PI
Copyright: 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact: newmedia@seattlepi.com
Website:https://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Patient_Arrest.html
Author: Gene Johnson
Steven William Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when he shuffled into U.S. District Court for a detention hearing Wednesday, said his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. Donohue ordered Tuck temporarily released so that Hiatt and Sunil Aggarwal, the president of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, could take him to Harborview Medical Center for treatment.
"The guy comes into the jail with a catheter sticking out the end of his (penis), you'd think they'd do something about it!" Hiatt said, launching into a profanity-laced tirade after the hearing. "This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days for no reason."
However, by the time Donohoe issued his order releasing Tuck, King County Jail officials had received a detainment request from Humboldt County, Calif., officials, so he was not released Wednesday, Hiatt said.
"I can't believe we've run into another snag here," the lawyer added.
Tuck is charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and Donohue ordered his release on the condition that he face the charge in the Northern District of California upon his release from the hospital. The U.S. attorney's office in Seattle did not oppose that release.
But he also faces prosecution in state court in Humboldt County.
Tuck is a veteran who said he suffered debilitating injuries in the late 1980s, when his parachute failed to open during a jump. He spent a year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center undergoing surgeries to fuse discs in his back, Hiatt said. His injuries were exacerbated in a car crash that killed his brother-in-law in 1990; over the years, he has had more than a dozen surgeries, his friends said.
In 2001, he was living in McKinleyville, Calif., when his marijuana grow operation was raided for the second time. He fled to British Columbia to avoid prosecution, and sought asylum status, which was recently denied.
Last Friday, he checked himself in to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, because he had a cyst on his prostate and was having difficulty urinating, Hiatt said.
In a phone interview from Vancouver, Richard Cowan, a friend of Tuck's who runs the Web site marijuananews.com, said he was with Tuck at the hospital when Canadian authorities arrived and arrested Tuck on a departure order.
"I would not believe it unless I had seen it," Cowan said. "They sent people in to arrest him while he was on a gurney. They took him out of the hospital in handcuffs, put him in an SUV, and drove him to the border."
He was turned over to Whatcom County Jail officials, who, after being flooded with phone calls from activists, called federal marshals from Seattle to pick him up. The marshals brought him to the King County Jail in downtown Seattle.
Though Tuck had taken morphine - as prescribed by doctors - for about 16 years to help with his pain, he was given no painkiller or treatment at the jail other than ibuprofen, Hiatt said. Tuck, who appeared emaciated as he cried in court Wednesday, has been sick from the morphine withdrawal, Hiatt said.
King County Jail Capt. Roberta Johnson said Wednesday night that jail officials had tried unsuccessfully to contact officials in California about releasing Tuck but that they could not obtain proper authority after business hours. She declined to comment on whether he had received medical care Wednesday night but noted the jail has health staff available 24 hours a day.
A spokesman with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver said he could not immediately comment on the case.
Newshawk: Freaktan - 420Times.com
Source: Seattle PI
Copyright: 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact: newmedia@seattlepi.com
Website:https://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Patient_Arrest.html
Author: Gene Johnson
