By Steve Elliott
A Montana landlord with no criminal history has been sentenced to a year in prison for a medical marijuana operation run by his tenants.
Jonathan Janetski, 36, of Flathead Valley, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy on Monday to 12 months and one day in prison, reports The Associated Press.
“GREAT we get to support this guy for a year,” commented “home stretch” on the Billings Gazette‘s website. “Another 80000 dollars down the tubes, and for what? How does this help?”
Landlord Janetski had pleaded guilty to a charge of “maintaining a drug-involved premises.” The charge came after federal raids in March 2011 on medical marijuana operations including one run in Kalispell by Janetski’s renters, Evan Corum, Michael Kassner and Tyler Roe.
The conviction seems to show that federal prosecutors weren’t bluffing last year when they sent threatening letters to landlords who rent to medical marijuana operations. Janetski appears to be the only landlord charged as the result of two rounds of federal search warrants executed on cannabis operations in Montana last year, reports NORML at Opposing Views.
Prosecutors said federal agents seized 718 marijuana plants from the building in Kalispell that Janetski owned and that he helped remodel into a grow facility.
The tenants have already been sentenced on federal marijuana charges.
Montana’s conservative Republican-controlled Legislature last year tightened the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law so severely as to effectively repeal it, according to most cannabis advocates in the state.
Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration may have seen the political turmoil and patient confusion caused by the Legislature’s action as a prime opportunity to step in and wreak a little federal havoc. Marijuana is illegal for any purpose under the federal Uniform Controlled Substances Act.
Source : tokeofthetown
