HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html
Pubdate: Fri, 05 May 2000 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Section: Front page Copyright: 2000 San Jose Mercury News Contact: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190 Fax: (408) 271-3792 Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Becky Bartindale, Mercury News, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n032/a09.html PLEA BARGAIN CONCLUDES CASE AGAINST POT CLUB ACTIVIST Pot Club Activist's Case Ends With Deal Co-founder Peter Baez Placed On Probation; Felony Counts Dropped The high-profile case against Peter Baez, who founded one of the first medicinal marijuana centers in Santa Clara County only to be charged with drug crimes, ended in a Palo Alto courtroom late Thursday when he pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor in a deal with prosecutors, his attorneys said. The plea bargain resulted in the dismissal of seven felony counts against Baez, 36, in exchange for his plea to maintaining a place for the sale of marijuana, said his attorney, Gerald Uelmen. He did not receive jail time and will have to pay a $100 fine. "To a great extent, I think this is a vindication for Peter,'"said Uelmen. The settlement comes on the heels of recent appellate court decisions that weakened the district attorney's 2-year-old case, Uelmen said. One of the rulings led to the dismissal last month of charges against Avant! Corp. executives who had been charged with stealing trade secrets. District Attorney George Kennedy said late Thursday that he could not verify the details of the plea. But he confirmed that his office had been prepared to settle the case. "I don't want to put him in his grave," he said of Baez, who is fighting cancer. When he left work at 5:20 p.m. Thursday, Kennedy said, he had heard nothing about a bargain being struck. In addition to the $100 fine, Uelmen said, Superior Court Judge Diane Northway put Baez on a year of supervised probation. She ordered him to perform 50 hours of community service and to reimburse the county Housing Authority for any excess benefits he may have received. Baez had been executive director of the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center, which provided marijuana to AIDS and cancer patients for about a year until it closed after his arrest in May 1998. Baez said Thursday night he is immensely relieved to put the case behind him, and has no plans to get back into the medicinal marijuana dispensing business. But he will remain an advocate for medicinal marijuana for the sick and dying. He said the ordeal has left him exhausted. "I was attacked. My character was attacked. I was handcuffed. I was degraded," he said. "It just took a toll on me." Immediately after Thursday's court hearing, Baez said, he called his parents in Connecticut. His father, a retired minister and military veteran, wept at the news. "I said, 'It's over, dad, it's over.' He was very, very happy for me." His cousin, folk singer Joan Baez, was in the courtroom Thursday, as was his partner, Jesse Garcia, the cannabis center co-founder. Peter Baez drew on his cousin's explanation of why it was time to settle the case. "To quote Gandhi," he said, "it's OK to compromise, if you don't compromise your soul." Under the settlement, Baez said, he would get back most of the $29,000 that was in the center's bank account, which was frozen after his arrest. Of the $20,000 plus interest he hopes to get back, he said, much of it will go to pay his attorneys. In May 1998, Baez was indicted by a grand jury on seven felony counts, including five counts of illegally selling marijuana and two counts of grand theft. Prosecutors accused Baez of operating the center in violation of police department regulations requiring him to verify doctors' prescriptions for marijuana. Uelmen attributed Kennedy's willingness to settle the case to two recent appellate court decisions. The most significant, said Uelmen, was a ruling last month that Baez had made a credible showing of discriminatory prosecution. His lawyers had argued that he was singled out for prosecution because he was providing medicinal marijuana when others were doing the same thing. His attorneys were seeking access to internal district attorney memos about the decision to file grand theft charges against him. In the other case, the 6th District Court of Appeal ruled that the prosecution would have to produce transcripts from the grand jury hearings that led to Baez's indictment. It turned out the district attorney did not have those records. Contact Becky Bartindale at or (408) 920-5459. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D