News - Local - North Coast

Wednesday, Aug. 06, 2008

Former Morro Bay pot dispensary owner convicted, faces prison time

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The owner of a Morro Bay marijuana dispensary was found guilty of five counts of distributing drugs in federal court Tuesday.

Charles Lynch, the owner of the dispensary, faces a minimum of five years in prison.

His closely watched trial involved conflicting marijuana laws and went to a federal court jury Monday. Jurors were asked to determine whether Lynch was guilty of violating federal drug laws.

During a week-and-a-half-long trial in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors sought to depict Lynch as a common drug dealer who sold pot to teenagers and carried a backpack stuffed with cash.

Lynch was charged with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana and providing marijuana to people under the age of 21.

Lynch’s defense attorneys sought to portray him as a responsible businessman who had the blessing of Morro Bay’s mayor and city attorney before opening his Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers.

Moreover, they argued, he was told by an official with the Drug Enforcement Administration that enforcement on such facilities would be left up to local authorities, implying that Lynch would avoid federal prosecution if he obeyed the local laws.

That became the basis for their defense, known as entrapment by estoppel, in which a defendant essentially argues that he broke the law based on bad advice from a government official.

Prosecutors scoffed at the argument. They called to the witness stand a DEA agent who they said spoke with Lynch, and she said she never would have given him such advice.

The cultivation, use and sale of doctor-prescribed marijuana is allowed in some instances under California law. But the drug is banned altogether under federal law, which supersedes those of the states.

The U. S. Supreme Court has prohibited defendants from mounting a “medical necessity” defense, so Lynch’s attorneys did not elicit testimony from patients or their parents.

During the trial in front of U. S. District Judge George Wu, prosecutors focused on Lynch’s marijuana sales, which they said generated about $2 million from the time he opened his doors in spring 2006 until he was raided by federal agents about 11 months later.

They called undercover operatives who bought drugs from the facility and sheriff’s deputies and DEA agents who participated in the raid.