According to a piece in today’s Times Standard, the trimmer’s in the October Bust-O-Rama case where manicurists and growers came from a plethora of countries, did not have to plead to a felony as District Attorney Paul Gallegos had originally stated they would.

The four defendents—Lulita Dimov (20), Sergey Markov (27) and Mihail Stoev (31) of Bulgaria and Lulita Tsygankova (23) of Ukraine—plead no contest yesterday to misdemeanor charges of being an accessory.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, felony charges of cultivation and possession of marijuana were dismissed, and the defendants were sentenced to time served and two years probation. The agreement seemed a departure for the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, which had said it expected marijuana trimmers to plead to felony charges.

Deputy District Attorney Allan Dollison said his office changed course after taking another look at the case and the amount of time — 54 days — the defendants had already served behind bars.

”It’s not uncommon for felony drug offenders to serve no time,” Dollison said, adding that there were also some evidentiary issues with the case and that District Attorney Paul Gallegos made the final decision regarding the plea agreements.

This is a welcome change from what had appeared earlier to be a financially disastrous and socially unfair change in practice to go after trimmers. I’m glad to see that our DA saw the problem and is changing course. 

__________________

Photo from a trim scene a few years ago