The medical marijuana garden of Tennessee patient Bernie Ellis was raided on August 28, 2002, by Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force, made up of local and federal law enforcement. The task force confiscated Ellis's 20-30 plants, along with a number of un-rooted clones and other property. After inflating the number of plants, the federal government charged Ellis with manufacturing more than 100 plants, carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. In 2003, Ellis agreed to a plea bargain, and in September 2005 was sentenced to 4 years of supervised release. The federal government is appealing Ellis's "lenient" sentence, and Ellis continues to fight an asset forfeiture action to take his Tennessee farm from him. Ellis is currently serving 18 months of his 4 years of supervised release in a half-way house in Nashville.