The DEA Wants to Use a $37 Pot Sale to Seize a $1.5 Million Anaheim Building

According to the engineer, he and his wife purchased the Anaheim building, which has suites for up to 12 offices, in 2003 and that her dental practice was located there. (She has since relocated her office to Lake Forest.) Over the years, they've rented to a variety of tenants, from insurance companies to an immigration service. In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, presumably speaking on behalf of the newly inaugurated Barack Obama, issued the so-called Ogden memo, instructing federal prosecutors to not target medical-marijuana patients. California saw an immediate explosion of cannabis dispensaries. Anaheim was no exception, and the engineer quickly found himself fielding offers from marijuana collectives.

Because of the Ogden memo, because medical marijuana was legal under state law, and because his tenants held business permits from the city, he figured he wasn't doing anything illegal. "I am a law-abiding citizen," he says. "I didn't think I was doing anything wrong."

In its effort to seize his building, however, the DEA alleges otherwise, although it is clear from reading the agency's complaint it conducted absolutely no investigation itself, but rather relied on information provided by the Anaheim Police Department, which had conducted an undercover operation targeting the building. The investigation began—where else? —on Weedmaps, on which, according to the complaint, a pot club call Remedy Tree was located at the building and began advertising in December 2010.

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The investigation ended there, but the single sale—and a sale it was, since most pot goes for $50 or $60 per eighth of an ounce—was enough evidence for the DEA to argue that the otherwise-harmless computer engineer and dentist should lose their retirement-investment property. On Aug. 20, 2012, the agency filed its lawsuit. According to the landlord, he immediately ordered ReLeaf to leave the building, serving it with a three-day eviction notice; the club complied and left posthaste.

The landlord then sent certified letters to both the feds and the city of Anaheim, notifying them of his actions and requesting the government not seize his property. "I had no idea the tenant may allegedly be engaged in illegal activities at this location," he wrote. "I hope we do not have to go through legal procedures to . . . lift the lis pendens [pending lawsuits] filed against my property. My intent is to save the judge's valuable time, court time and taxpayers' money being used unjustly."

http://www.ocweekly.com/2013-02-07/news/anaheim-remedy-tree-ogden-memo-dea-kush-expo/?ref=trending