CTV.ca News Staff
Canadian pot activist Marc Emerey has been sentenced to five years in a U.S. prison for selling marijuana seeds south of the border.
The 52-year-old Vancouver resident learned his fate on Friday afternoon in a U.S. district court in Seattle.
His sentence also includes four years of "supervised release" following his prison term, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement that described Emery as the largest marijuana seeds vendor in the U.S. when he was indicted in 2005.
"There is no question your actions were illegal and criminal and your actions ensured that others broke the law and suffered the consequences," U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez told Emery in his sentencing decision.
Emery signed a plea agreement stating that he and two associates, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams, ran a business distributing marijuana seeds. Rainey, 39, and Williams, 54, both worked for Emery’s company. They were each sentenced to two years of probation on conspiracy to manufacture marijuana charges last year in a Seattle court.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said that three-quarters of the seeds that Emery’s company sold between 1995 and 2005 wound up in the United States, where it is illegal to sell the seeds. It also charged that seeds from Emery’s company were linked to illegal marijuana-growing operations "protected by guns and booby traps."
"Marc Emery decided that U.S. laws did not apply to him, but he was wrong," U.S. attorney Jenny A. Durkan said in a statement. "He sold to anyone who would pay him — with no regard for the age or criminal activities of his customers."
In May, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ordered that Emery be extradited to the U.S., after a five-year legal battle over Emery’s business.
More to come…