HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html Plea Bargain Concludes Case Against Pot Club Activist
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