Lafayette man pleads guilty in pot-candy case
Henry K. Lee, San Feancisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007
The ringleader of an Oakland group that made marijuana-laced candy and soft drinks resembling popular confections was sentenced today to 70 months in prison, authorities said.
Kenneth Affolter, 39, of Lafayette pleaded guilty in September to a single count of conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana for making doctored treats that authorities said were packaged for shipment throughout the West Coast.
Affolter admitted that under the product name Beyond Bomb, he made a range of pot-laced treats with names like Buddahfingers, Munchy Way, Rasta Reece's, Puff-a-Mint Pattie, Keef Kat, Stoney Ranchers, Puffsi, Trippy, Pot Tart, Budtella and Toka-Cola. At a hearing today in Oakland, U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen also ordered Affolter to pay a $250,000 fine and placed him on four years of supervised release.
The case was the latest pitting federal officials against medicinal marijuana advocates.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, marijuana is illegal regardless of why someone uses it and no matter what form it takes, especially marijuana candy products that mimic mainstream candies and are attractive to youths.
But angry medicinal marijuana users have said that the raids proved that the DEA and other law-enforcement agencies are running roughshod over local and state laws that allow for medicinal cannabis use.
In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, which allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's recommendation. Despite the law, authorities -- from the California Highway Patrol to the DEA -- have regularly pounced on local marijuana-growing operations in the Bay Area.
One of those raids was on March 16, 2006, when drug agents searched two adjoining warehouses at 1055 and 1071 Yerba Buena Ave. and at 3960 Adeline St. in Emeryville.
Investigators learned that a $3,913 PG&E balance for a month's period covered all three locations and was billed to Affolter, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent William Armstrong wrote in an affidavit.
Affolter told Oakland police officers who responded to a silent alarm at one of the Yerba Buena warehouses in February 2006 that "he made soaps and candles," agents wrote.
Investigators also searched Affolter's Lafayette home and a location on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.
During the raids, investigators seized about $100,000 in cash, 11,692 rooted marijuana plants, 17,736 unrooted "clone" plants, marijuana-growing equipment, three weapons, an electronic money counter and hundreds of sodas and candy laced with marijuana, authorities said.
Yet Affolter, in a monitored telephone call to his parents from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, boasted that the DEA "got a lot of money, but they didn't get it all!" Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Wagner wrote Thursday in a sentencing memorandum.
In the same phone call, which took place shortly after his arrest, Affolter told his mother, "I am financially taken care of" and discussed spending "a couple of years" traveling the world, Wagner wrote.
Citing Affolter's apparent access to "significant undisclosed financial resources," the federal prosecutor urged the judge to impose a $500,000 fine.
A number of Affolter's former employees, who are codefendants, have also been convicted in the case.
Amy Teresa Arata of Oakland and Jesse Monko of Walnut Creek both admitted to performing supervisory roles in Affolter's marijuana operation. Each pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy counts. On Thursday, Jensen sentenced Arata to 18 months in prison; Monko received the same sentence today.
Nathan Woodard was sentenced today to two months in prison.
Jaime Alvarez-Lopez, Barbara Alvarez and Elizabeth Ramirez pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana offenses. Each was sentenced in January to a year in prison.
Camilo Ruiz-Rodriguez was sentenced to eight months for a misdemeanor marijuana offense.
Last month, Maria Alarcon-Romero was placed on probation for a year.
Teresa Rojas will be sentenced on March 9, and James White and Robert Blackwell are scheduled to be sentenced on March 23.
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