MediZen operator sentenced to five years in federal dispensary case
Stockton businessman Matthew Davies was sentenced to five years in federal prison on 13 December 2013 for manufacturing marijuana and supplying dispensaries in Stockton and Sacramento. His partner had pleaded guilty in January to running the MediZen chain raided by the DEA in October 2011.
🇺🇸 Sacramento and Stockton, California · California, United States
On 13 December 2013 a federal judge ordered Stockton businessman Matthew Davies to surrender to prison on 3 March to serve a five-year sentence for manufacturing medical marijuana and distributing it through dispensaries in Stockton and Sacramento.[1]Davies, 36, had pleaded guilty in June to federal drug charges dating back to 2010, describing his operations as within the letter of California law.[1]
The case grew out of DEA raids on 17 October 2011 against the MediZen dispensary on Northgate Boulevard in Sacramento and the Central Valley Caregiver’s Co-operative in Stockton.[2]A MediZen employee said agents arrived at 7.30am, seized the shop’s product and cash, and forced it to close, although neither the dispensary nor its landlord had received a federal threat letter.[2]
In January 2013 Davies’s partner Lynn Farrell Smith, 62, pleaded guilty to two counts of manufacturing marijuana and six counts of distributing it from storefronts, admitting he co-owned MediZen and six other Sacramento and Stockton shops and grew their supply at a Stockton home and warehouse.[3]Prosecutors said the businesses made millions in revenue while falsely claiming compliance with California medical marijuana laws.[3]No arrests during the 2011 raids were reported.[2]
Case data
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