Pubdate: Sat, 03 Aug 2013
Source: Day, The (New London,CT)
Copyright: 2013 The Day Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.theday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293
Author: Karen Florin

FEDS TO SEIZE WATERFORD HOME WHERE COUPLE GREW POT

Marders' Attorney Says Government Action 'Excessive'

Waterford- Seth and Beth Marder are looking for a new place to live 
nowthat a federal judge has affirmed the government's intention to 
seize the couple's colonial-style home at 5 Reynolds Lane, where they 
were cultivating marijuana, they say, for their own medicinal use.

"The War on Drugs is a joke," said Seth Marder, 51, who suffers from 
mental and physical health conditions and claims marijuana is the 
only drug that makes him feel right.

Local and federal authorities raided the couple's home in 2009, 
seizing about 100 marijuana seedling plants, which the Marders call 
the "moms," or female plants, from a small laundry room off the 
kitchen, about 100 plants in various stages of growth in their 
barn-style garage, grow lights and other cultivation equipment. The 
government also said they seized packaging equipment, though the 
couple insists they never sold marijuana to anyone from their home, 
and about $5,000 in cash. Their attorney, William T. Koch Jr., said 
the government's taking of the home is "hypocritical and excessive." 
He had argued at a trial in April that the forfeiture of the home is 
a violation of the U. S. Constitution's prohibition of excessive 
fines. He said the couple was willing to pay a fine but the 
government would not negotiate.

"I understand the forfeiture statutes if somebody is importing pounds 
of cocaine and heroin and buying mansions and cigarette boats in Palm 
Beach," Koch said in an interview Friday. "These are medical 
marijuana patients who were not bothering anyone."

Criminal charges brought

After the raid, the Marders faced criminal charges in state court and 
civil charges in federal court, where the government moved for 
forfeiture of the home, valued at $ 200,000, because the couple had 
violated the Controlled Substances Act. Beth Marder's criminal case 
was not prosecuted. Seth Marder pleaded guilty to cultivating 
marijuana without a license, a felony, and received a fully suspended 
prison sentence and three years probation.

For the next four years, the couple said in an interview at their 
home Friday, they lived with a sticker on the door that said the U.S. 
Marshals intended to seize the home and with the uncertainty of not 
knowing whether they would have to find another place to live. Seth 
Marder is unable to work due to his medical problems. Beth Marder 
said she teaches science to high school students online.

The government, in order to seize the property, had to prove that 
"there was a substantial connection between the property and the 
offense," while the Marders attempted to prove the forfeiture was 
constitutionally excessive because it is "grossly proportionate" to 
the offense.

In his July 25 decision, U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight ruled 
that requiring the couple to forfeit the house does not violate the 
Excessive Fines clause of the Eighth Amendment but suggested the 
government reconsider now that it has prevailed in court.

"The Government, having achieved that litigation objective, may wish 
to consider whether, in the totality of the present circumstances, 
depriving the Marders of their home best serves the justice and 
wisdom of the cause," Haight wrote.

A spokesman for the U. S. Attorney's office said there would be no 
comment. Assistant U. S. Attorney David X. Sullivan had represented 
the government.

The Marders said they don't know where they will live if U.S. 
Marshals follow through with the intended seizure of the home on Aug. 16.

"We're out of Connecticut," Beth Marder said. "That much we know."

The Marders moved to Waterford from Yreka, Calif., in 2005 because it 
was halfway between Cape Cod, where Beth Marder's terminally ill 
mother was living, and Greenwich, where Seth Marder's mother lives.

The couple had legally grown marijuana for Seth Marder's use in 
California and sold the excess, legally, to marijuana clubs that 
distributed cannabis for medicinal purposes. Seth Marder suffers from 
chronic depression and bipolar disorder, and received a license to 
use marijuana when California legalized the drug for medicinal 
purposes in 1996. He estimates he made a total of $100,000 selling 
the marijuana to the clubs from 2000 to 2005.

He said he stopped smoking marijuana after the raid and has been 
taking pharmaceutical products, which he calls "crap" that does not 
ease his symptoms and has unpleasant side effects.

Beth Marder said she smoked marijuana recreationally but began using 
it for medicinal reasons after being diagnosed in December 2005 with 
chronic neurological Lyme disease. She, too, said she has stopped 
using marijuana.

Changing standards

At the trial in April, attorney Koch asked Judge Haight to be "on the 
right side of history," citing the "evolving standards" with respect 
to marijuana. He said Colorado and Washington have legalized 
marijuana and several other states, including Connecticut, now allow 
licensed consumers to use the drug for medicinal purposes.

"The future, if you want to be on the side of history, is when 
marijuana is going to become legal and the Government will make 10 
times as much money taxing it," Koch argued.

The Marders had what Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent 
Jon Rubinstein described at the trial as a "functioning, well 
thought-out, well-concealed producing grow" in their home, which is 
situated on a small lot on a dead end off Boston Post Road with other 
homes nearby.

The couple had blacked out the windows of their garage, because they 
said the plants need complete darkness for 12 hours a day, and had 
erected double walls for insulation and installed lighting and 
watering systems. Though the government was skeptical of the Marders' 
claim that they never sold marijuana from the property, Judge Haight 
wrote in his decision that he "accepted their testimony on this 
aspect of the case" because neither federal nor local authorities 
"took any follow-up investigatory steps to determine if the Marders 
were selling or distributing marijuana to others."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom