[Farm A.C.]

Cannahelp Owner, Managers Ordered to Stand Trial

Posted: Dec 7, 2007 11:10 PM
Stacy Hochanadal, owner of the Cannahelp dispensary, has been accused of selling medical marijuana for profit.
Stacy Hochanadal, owner of the Cannahelp dispensary, has been accused of selling medical marijuana for profit.

KESQ.com news services

The owner and two managers of a defunct medical marijuana dispensary in Palm Desert will stand trial on drug charges, a judge ruled Friday.

Stacy Hochanadel, who owned CannaHelp in Palm Desert, and managers James Campbell and John Bednar, all 31, are charged with felony possession of marijuana for sale, the transportation and sale of marijuana and keeping a place to sell controlled substances.

"It appears the defendants committed the offenses alleged," said Judge Eric G. Helgesen of Tulare County in binding over the defendants for trial.

The three contend they were running a legal medical marijuana business under Proposition 215 and Senate Bill 420. Under California law, marijuana can be sold on a not-for-profit basis to patients with a doctor's prescription.

But Helgesen said the defendants violated the law because the dispensary was profitable, generating well over a million dollars in pot sales.

"We're disappointed, but I think the judge did a thorough and conscientious job and he gave us the reasons for his ruling," said Hochanadel's attorney, Ulrich McNulty.

The defendants, who had been free on bail, were allowed to remain free on their own recognizance.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to 16 months to two years in state, prosecutors said.

Marijuana and financial records were seized at CannaHelp, 73359 El Paseo, in December 2006 during a raid by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which alleged the dispensary was a for-profit business.

During cross-examination yesterday by Campbell's attorney, Aimee Larsen, Riverside County Sheriff's investigator Robert Garcia testified that the dispensary generated $1.6 million from the sale of marijuana.

He also said the defendants never tried to hide their business from law enforcement and that it would be unfair to compare them to street-level drug dealers.

Garcia testified that an undercover officer twice purchased marijuana on the premises for what he said was a back problem.

He also said CannaHelp tried to comply with the law and that the dispensary at first refused to sell the undercover officer marijuana because he did not have a doctor's prescription.

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