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The DA Calls It 'Simple Dope Dealing,' But Defendants Say They Were Taking
Care Of Ill Patients.
Two people who operated a Citrus Heights "cannabis club" manipulated the
state medicinal marijuana law and raked in $3,000 a day in pot sales, a
prosecutor said Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. "This was simple dope
dealing," Deputy District Attorney Caroline Park said in closing arguments
of the three-month trial.
Defense attorneys for Susan B. Rodger and Michael Urziceanu accused the
prosecutor and her office of having an agenda that is opposed to the
state's Compassionate Use Act, which decriminalized marijuana use for
medical purposes.
"They just don't want marijuana in the community," said Urziceanu's lawyer,
Victor S. Haltom.
Rodger, a former state computer specialist with internal organ problems,
and Urziceanu, a former state correctional officer who complained of a neck
injury, are charged with multiple charges of drug possession and sales.
If convicted, they could be sent to prison. The jury begins its first full
day of deliberation this morning.
The defense claimed the couple were medical providers under the state law
and set up a cultivation and sales network with about 300 members. The
defendants claimed their FloraCare network was a primary caregiver.
The law intends that the primary caregiver be an "individual" and not a
business, the prosecutor said.
As evidence that FloraCare was a business, Park showed records taken from
Rodger's computer that showed an entry that read "profit."
Rodger's attorney, David Marcolini, told jurors in his summary that the
defendants were providing a medical service to needy patients, some of whom
were so sick with such ailments as muscular dystrophy they couldn't grow
their own marijuana.
"Everyone had a legitimate medical condition," Marcolini said of the state
law requirement that medicinal use of marijuana must be doctor-recommended.
Rodger and Urziceanu were arrested in September 2001, after an 11-month
police investigation. Their FloraCare network advertised on the Internet as
a cannabis club, which provided the chronically ill with medicinal marijuana.
In a raid of a Citrus Heights home on Rusch Drive, officers found more than
150 mature marijuana plants and pounds of pot in processed form. Some was
baked in cookies. A 9mm handgun and shotgun also were recovered. In the
refrigerator, stuffed in a cottage cheese container and in a blue mug, was
$3,197 in cash, Park told jurors.
In another search of Rodger's home on Spring Haven Lane in El Dorado
County, more than $6,000 in cash was found in a dresser drawer.
Jurors heard from a parade of chronically ill "members" who had filled out
applications to make medicinal pot purchases. One-eighth of an ounce of
marijuana sold for $50.
The defendants testified that law enforcement officials inflated the amount
of the money that was going through their hands in an effort to discredit them.
The people they were helping came from all walks of life -- from the young
and old to the conservative and the liberal, the defense attorneys said.
"This is not a prosecution. It is a persecution," Haltom said.
Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jul 2003
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Webpage: https://www.sacbee.com/content/news/crime/story/7080114p-8028029c.html
Copyright: 2003 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: Northern California Breaking News, Sports & Crime | The Sacramento Bee
Care Of Ill Patients.
Two people who operated a Citrus Heights "cannabis club" manipulated the
state medicinal marijuana law and raked in $3,000 a day in pot sales, a
prosecutor said Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. "This was simple dope
dealing," Deputy District Attorney Caroline Park said in closing arguments
of the three-month trial.
Defense attorneys for Susan B. Rodger and Michael Urziceanu accused the
prosecutor and her office of having an agenda that is opposed to the
state's Compassionate Use Act, which decriminalized marijuana use for
medical purposes.
"They just don't want marijuana in the community," said Urziceanu's lawyer,
Victor S. Haltom.
Rodger, a former state computer specialist with internal organ problems,
and Urziceanu, a former state correctional officer who complained of a neck
injury, are charged with multiple charges of drug possession and sales.
If convicted, they could be sent to prison. The jury begins its first full
day of deliberation this morning.
The defense claimed the couple were medical providers under the state law
and set up a cultivation and sales network with about 300 members. The
defendants claimed their FloraCare network was a primary caregiver.
The law intends that the primary caregiver be an "individual" and not a
business, the prosecutor said.
As evidence that FloraCare was a business, Park showed records taken from
Rodger's computer that showed an entry that read "profit."
Rodger's attorney, David Marcolini, told jurors in his summary that the
defendants were providing a medical service to needy patients, some of whom
were so sick with such ailments as muscular dystrophy they couldn't grow
their own marijuana.
"Everyone had a legitimate medical condition," Marcolini said of the state
law requirement that medicinal use of marijuana must be doctor-recommended.
Rodger and Urziceanu were arrested in September 2001, after an 11-month
police investigation. Their FloraCare network advertised on the Internet as
a cannabis club, which provided the chronically ill with medicinal marijuana.
In a raid of a Citrus Heights home on Rusch Drive, officers found more than
150 mature marijuana plants and pounds of pot in processed form. Some was
baked in cookies. A 9mm handgun and shotgun also were recovered. In the
refrigerator, stuffed in a cottage cheese container and in a blue mug, was
$3,197 in cash, Park told jurors.
In another search of Rodger's home on Spring Haven Lane in El Dorado
County, more than $6,000 in cash was found in a dresser drawer.
Jurors heard from a parade of chronically ill "members" who had filled out
applications to make medicinal pot purchases. One-eighth of an ounce of
marijuana sold for $50.
The defendants testified that law enforcement officials inflated the amount
of the money that was going through their hands in an effort to discredit them.
The people they were helping came from all walks of life -- from the young
and old to the conservative and the liberal, the defense attorneys said.
"This is not a prosecution. It is a persecution," Haltom said.
Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jul 2003
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Webpage: https://www.sacbee.com/content/news/crime/story/7080114p-8028029c.html
Copyright: 2003 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: Northern California Breaking News, Sports & Crime | The Sacramento Bee