Medical-Marijuana Seniors Sentenced in Federal Court

Case Has Links to ‘Green Fire’ Grow-Store Scandal

By Mark Miller

May 8, 2002

SACRAMENTO, CA–On April 5, senior citizens William and Peggy Riddick were each sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after reaching a plea bargain in their medical-marijuana case. The two were growing medicine for Dennis Peron at their rural Newcastle, CA home when they were busted on February 14, 1997.

Peron, the San Francisco medicinal-cannabis activist, has corroborated the Riddicks’ contention that they were growing for his now defunct Cannabis Cultivation Club (CCC) to supply patients who had obtained doctors’ recommendations, as allowed under California’s 1996 medical-marijuana law. (The CCC ceased operation in 1998.)

The couple was raided by Detective Tracy Grant and the Marijuana Eradication Team of the Placer County Sheriff’s Department. Grant is at the center of the storm in the "Green Fire" grow-store scandal. He is likely to face numerous civil suits for his role in raiding dozens of Sacramento County residents, some of whom had shopped at Green Fire, a hydroponics store in Sacramento.

Some of the Green Fire defendants allege their civil rights were violated, based on questionable affidavits Grant used to secure search warrants. He is accused of falsifying evidence and using virtually the same language in most of these affidavits, including those obtained via a federal grand-jury subpoena, in which no proper federal investigation was conducted.

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