Southern California medical marijuana patient and provider Aaron Sandusky is serving a 10 year federal prison sentence for operating a medical cannabis cooperative in full compliance with state law.

Federal authorities threatened clinics such as Sandusky's G3 Holistics, Inc. (Upland, CA) in 2011.  In June 2012, Aaron Sandusky, his brother, and four other people were arrested during a DEA raid of the G3 Holistics medical cannabis clinic. 

At a jury trial in fall 2012, Sandusky was convicted of possession with intent to distribute marijuana involving at least 1,000 plants.  Sandusky received a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years on January 7, 2013.

Aaron Sandusky #63038-112
MDC Los Angeles
P.O. Box 1500
Los Angeles, CA 90053

Scott Eric Feil #14313-111
CI TAFT
P.O. BOX 7001
TAFT, CA 93268

Erik Stacy #64977-097
FCI LA TUNA
P.O. BOX 6000
ANTHONY, TX 88021
Release date: 11-16-2014

April 27, 2010 - Five gardens allegedly connected to the B&C Natural Things collective in Ridgecrest were raided by NCIS, CHP, Kern county sheriffs, Inyo and Cal City SWAT teams. Taken into custody were Erik Christopher Stacy (27), Robert Davis Dodson, Jr, Charles Lee Kisor, Charles Edward Klaus, and Geoffrey Edward Bliss. All are reportedly charged with cultivation of more than 1000 plants, the aggregate of the gardens. Each plant was labeled with a patient's name; the collective had 450 patients.

Charles Lee Kisor 64974-097
CI TAFT
P.O. BOX 7001
TAFT, CA 93268
Release date: 08-24-201

April 27, 2010 - Five gardens allegedly connected to the B&C Natural Things collective in Ridgecrest were raided by NCIS, CHP, Kern county sheriffs, Inyo and Cal City SWAT teams. Taken into custody were Erik Christopher Stacy (27), Robert Davis Dodson, Jr, Charles Lee Kisor, Charles Edward Klaus, and Geoffrey Edward Bliss. All are reportedly charged with cultivation of more than 1000 plants, the aggregate of the gardens. Each plant was labeled with a patient's name; the collective had 450 patients.

Christopher Bartkowicz #36791-013
Leavenworth USP
P.O. Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS  66048

One day after he was interviewed on a local television station about his home medical cannabis garden, Denver resident Chris Bartkowicz's home was raided by the DEA .  Bartkowicz was charged in federal court on on February 16, 2010 with cultivating 224 plants (119 of which had root structures and 105 clones).  He pleaded guilty in October 2010 one count of possession with intent to manufacture, distribute or dispense marijuana.  On January 28, 2011, Chris Bartkowicz was sentenced to five years in prison, to be followed by eight years of supervised probation; Bartkowicz will also undergo mandatory drug and mental health programs.

Bartkowicz's release is projected for January 29, 2014 by the Bureau of Prisons.

Sherry Flor #11358-046
Phoenix FCI
37930 N. 45th Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85986

Joshua John Hester #59277-112
San Diego MCC
808 Union St.
San Diego, CA 92101

Federal agents arrested 12 people in San Diego County associated with Joshua Hester, who was arrested in West Hollywood on July 9, 2010.  The indictment claims that Hester, 29, distributed 3,000 pounds of marijuana he purchased from a major Los Angeles dealer in 2007 and 2008.  Federal authorities also claim that Hester was the silent owner of the San Diego's Downtown Kush Lounge and Mission Bay's Green Kross Collective.  The Mission Bay location was co-owned with Joseph Nunes, who was arrested in a September 2009 raid by San Diego law enforcement.

Joshua Hester pleaded guilty on January 3, 2012 to eight counts including conspiracy to distribute over 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, conspiracy to maintain drug-related premises, and conspiracy to launder money.  Hester was sentenced to 100 months in custody by U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez on January 24, 2013.

Hester will serve over eight years in federal custody for operating Kush Lounge and Green Kross Collective.  Since October 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in coordination with the Drug Enforcement Administration, has issued cease and desist letters to about 253 marijuana dispensaries in the San Diego County and Imperial County. The Department of Justice reports that there was a 95 percent self-closure rate in response to the letters.  Fourteen remaining dispensaries in the San Diego area were raided in September 2009.

Dale C. Shafer #15839-097
CI Taft
P.O. Box 7001
Taft, CA 93268

Civil attorney Dale Schafer and his wife, physician Dr. Mollie Fry, began serving 5 year sentences on May 2, 2011 for cultivating medical marijuana in a home garden that never had more than 44 plants at a time.  However, the federal government added up the number of plants grown in the seasons between 2001 and 2005 and charged the couple with growing 100 or more plants, which carries a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence.  The couple spent more than six years of litigation and three years of appeals for charges of manufacturing and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cannabis.

Dr. Fry, a breast cancer survivor who had gone through a radical mastectomy, grew her own medicine throughout her illness, surgery, and chemotherapy.   Schafer suffers from hemophilia and failed back syndrome, is under constant care, and also medicated with cannabis legally.

Brian Epis #09636-097
FCI Terminal Island
P.O. Box 3007
San Pedro, CA 90731

Medical marijuana grower Bryan Epis has been caught in a legal nightmare ever since June 1997, when law enforcement agents seized 458 marijuana plants and various computer documents from his home in Chico, CA.  That raid occurred mere months after California voters legalized medical marijuana statewide, and Epis’s case quickly inspired outrage in the activist community.  Not only was he charged with criminal cultivation, prosecutors used documents taken from the search to charge him with conspiracy to cultivate over a thousand plants.  Epis was unable to mount a medical defense to his charges because he was prosecuted on the federal level, where state medical marijuana laws don’t apply. 

When the case went to trial in 2002, prosecutors relied heavily on out-of-context excerpts from the seized computer documents, which had been printed from different computer programs in a manner that made them appear as a series of separate documents involving various locations.  The jury ended up finding Epis guilty and he was given the mandatory minimum sentence: ten years in federal prison.  Epis was incarcerated for over two years before getting released on bail pending appeal in August 2004, a move that gave him five and a half years of freedom to spend with his young daughter. 

However, in spite of claims of prosecutorial misconduct and missing evidence, Epis lost round after round of his appeal.  By February 23rd, 2010, he had exhausted his legal options and was taken back into custody to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.