Pot shop case nets 2 guilty pleas

Two of four people accused of possessing marijuana for sale when Tuolumne County authorities raided their medical marijuana collective in May pleaded guilty Monday in Tuolumne County Superior Court.

Jason Brisco, 42, of Soulsbyville, and Rhett Schuller, 40, of Sonora, accepted a plea agreement with the Tuolumne County District Attorney’s Office under which each pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana for sale out of their Foothill Care Collective on Mono Way.

Prosecutors dropped similar charges against Brisco’s father, Jim Brisco, 69, of Sonora, and Renee Rivera, 41, of Soulsbyville.    

Superior Court Presiding Judge Eric L. DuTemple left the door open for Brisco and Schuller to appeal the case.    

“I don’t like this, but now we’ll go through the appeals process,” Brisco said.    

Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office narcotics agents in May raided all three medical marijuana dispensaries in the county and arrested nine people on charges of operating the dispensaries as for-profit businesses, which is against state laws regulating the substance for medicinal purposes.    

Brisco and Schuller are the first to enter guilty pleas in connection with the raids.    

The group was in court last week where their attorney, Sarah White, argued in favor of allowing them to claim they were operating within the laws governing medical marijuana.    

Prosecutors countered that the group’s members were not immune from the charges because they were not acting as primary caregivers to the patients.   

DuTemple said he would wait to rule on whether the defense would be allowed, but changed his mind at the final readiness conference before the trial was set to begin  Wednesday.   

“It is the court’s belief that Ms. White did not intend to put any evidence forth that there was a caregiving relationship between the defendants and undercover agents,” DuTemple said.    

The Medical Marijuana Program Act, passed by the state Legislature in 2003 as SB 420, defines a primary caregiver as “the individual, designated by a qualified patient or by a person with an identification card, who has consistently assumed the responsibility for the housing, health or safety of that patient or person.”    

Acting District Attorney Michael Knowles said Brisco and Schuller engaged in selling marijuana to confidential informants and undercover Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Detective Jarrod Pippin.   

“There at no time was a primary caregiving relationship between the person purchasing and the person vending,” he said.    

Brisco is facing up to a year in jail and five years probation, while prosecutors recommended up to four years of imprisonment for Schuller, who served a prior prison term stemming from a 1998 conviction. Records show he was arrested that year after evading police while driving drunk with his children in the car.    

Brisco will be allowed to remain out of custody pending an appeal, but Schuller will not.    

Sentencing was scheduled for March 26.    

White said the charges against Rivera and Jim Brisco were dropped because the two had never engaged in direct sales with undercover agents or confidential informants.    

She said the group’s right to an appeal was not waived “based on that reasonable people could disagree.”    

“We want better guidelines from the appellate courts as far as what’s acceptable,” White said.    

Knowles said he anticipates similar endings to the county’s other two marijuana dispensary cases working their way through the courts.    

“This particular decision is not binding on other cases, but the law is the same and will have the same effect,” he said.    

Sarah Marie Jacobs, 28, of Twain Harte, accused of running Alternate Natural Solutions Inc. on Enterprise Drive in Chinese Camp as a for-profit medical marijuana dispensary, was also in court Monday. A trial readiness conference in Jacobs’ case was delayed to Feb. 27.    

Four people arrested in the raid on Today’s Health Collective, a marijuana cooperative on Via Este Road in East Sonora, were in court Friday, when their request to exclude the entire county’s District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the case was denied.