Felony synthetic THC charge tossed in Michigan man’s battle with crime lab
GRAND HAVEN, MI — A judge has sided with a Spring Lake man in his battle to get a felony marijuana charge dismissed, a case that hinged on controversial state police testing methods.
Ottawa County Circuit Court Judge Ed Post granted a motion to quash the case against 35-year-old Max Lorincz, who was charged with possessing synthetic THC.
Lorincz was charged in early 2015 with possessing marijuana after police responded to his house for a medical call and found a small container containing a dab of marijuana oil. Lorincz uses the oil to control pain after a 2005 debilitating back injury.
Lorincz argued he was a registered medical marijuana patient and refused to plead guilty to the charge. Prosecutors then upgraded the count to the felony.
Related: Michigan’s medical marijuana law circumvented by crime labs’ THC reports, attorney charges
Prosecutors alleged the charge was appropriate because state police crime lab technicians simply listed the oil as containing THC, with the origin unknown because there was no plant-based material found.
Ottawa County Prosecutor Ron Frantz earlier described the charging decision as a “legal question of statutory interpretation.”
But Lorincz’s attorney, Michael Komorn, argued that prosecutors need more evidence before they can file a charge of synthetic THC. In Lorincz’s case, the oil was from marijuana, he said.
Related: ‘It’s been a nightmare,’ man says of contested synthetic marijuana charge
Komorn argued some prosecutors across the state have pressured the crime lab to report oils and waxes as “origin unknown,” allow them to pursue harsher charges.
The troubles surrounding the felony charge for Lorincz involved more than just a criminal case.
Authorities placed the 6-year-old son of Lorincz and his wife into foster care after an Ottawa County Family Court petition was filed. Their son has been in foster care for more than a year and the couple, as of late October, only had supervised visitation rights.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 22, to review the Family Court case.
Frantz issued the following statement following Post’s ruling:
“The court’s decision turned on definitions and statutory language that we believed supported the charge as written. The District Court judge found our interpretation to be correct, Circuit Judge Post disagreed and ruled otherwise,” Frantz wrote.
“We believe the increasing prevalence of extremely high potency marijuana-based and synthetic-based drugs is reason to update and clarify our statutes,” he said.
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Judge dismissed felony charge against medical marijuana patient Max Lorincz
OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. – After 16 months of a criminal and family court battle, an Ottawa County Circuit Court Judge dismissed wrongful felony charges against a Spring Lake father and card-carrying medical marijuana patient for having “synthetic THC.”
Friday Max Lorincz was in court for multiple hearings regarding his criminal case, after he was charged with a two-year felony for what the Michigan State Police crime lab depicts as “synthetic THC.” Judge Edward Post ruled that the prosecution did not provide any evidence to prove what Lorincz had was not marijuana; therefore the charge is dropped.
“It’s been a long 16 months, it’s just nice to have it over that’s for sure,” said Lorincz.
“I’m glad it helps anyone else, I mean from the very beginning I haven’t been willing to take a plea deal or anything ‘cause I didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve always medicated properly, and tried to make sure that we’re doing everything right,” he said.
This dismissal has statewide implications for marijuana cases, and potentially puts a stop to erroneous charges of synthetic THC.
“The judge got it right: the law is very clear on this, and any prosecutor that proceeds under a theory as this office did here is flat-out wrong,” said Attorney Michael Komorn, who represents Lorincz.
“It should be appealed, they should be stopped from doing that. So all defense lawyers should know that it’s an inappropriate charge.”
This dismissal is a huge step for Lorincz, but his life is only partly back to normal as he and his wife continue to fight for custody of their six-year-old son, Dante.
“[My son] has been incredibly happy, having a lot of fun and begs us to come home constantly,” said Lorincz.
“Obviously we can’t give him answers about any of that, but we try to keep him positive, we try to stay as positive as we can.”
Lorincz’s crime lab report showed he had a “smear” amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and then the phrase “origin unknown.” He was charged with a two-year felony for having synthetic pot; a case FOX 17 has been reporting since February 2015. As a result of this charge, Lorincz and his wife lost custody of Dante, and have spent the last 16 months in a separate family court case that has uprooted their lives.
In October, FOX 17 broke Komorn’s allegations that the crime labs’ recent policy change is corrupt. It’s a policy that is accused of targeting Michigan medical marijuana patients with far-reaching affects for Lorincz, who is fighting for custody of his son because of it.
Komorn first accused prosecutors of inappropriately influencing the way the MSP crime labs report marijuana extracts, when plant matter is not visible–like in the case of brownies and oils–as “origin unknown” on the lab report. This statement allows prosecutors the discretion to charge a person with a felony for having “synthetic THC,” instead of having marijuana, which is a misdemeanor.
Komorn, along with Attorneys Neil Rockind and Mike Nichols, filed federal complaints against the MSP crime labs to the National Institute of Justice. Their complaints call for an independent investigation into these allegations that the state crime labs are knowingly misreporting marijuana as “origin unknown,” which again leads to felonies for synthetic THC.
The bottom line, Komorn and others argue, is the crime labs should be dependent of the state police. Emails Komorn obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show a conflict of interest between police, the crime lab, and prosecutors he said.
“The emails tell a story that show there’s a deep conflict of interest, and this case is that example,” said Komorn.
“The emails from this case reflect a non-independent forensic center that is essentially witnesses for the prosecution with the same goal of conviction, not a goal of science and accuracy.”
Friday in Ottawa County Circuit Court, Judge Post heard the defense’s motion to quash Lorincz’s bindover; Daubert hearing; as well as a bill of particulars.
Attorney Karen Miedema with the Ottawa County Prosecutor’s Office, handling Lorincz’s case, declined to comment. Miedema told FOX 17 the prosecution is considering filing one-year misdemeanor charges for marijuana possession against Lorincz.
“We’re going to hope it’s over, we’re going to hope they’re going to re-evaluate their case and end it so we can move on, and Max can move on with his life,” said Komorn.
Here is a series of stories of background on Lorincz’s case:
Former MSP Forensic Science Director told FOX 17 he resigned over politicking in labs
Nov. 5 evidentiary hearing adjourned until Jan. 22
Medical marijuana battle: Father fights for custody of his son
A permanency planning hearing for Lorincz to regain custody of his son was heard in Ottawa County Probate Court Friday afternoon. Judge Mark Feyen said he was “90 percent” ready to reunite the family going into the hearing, but continued supervised visits until the next hearing which will be set within the next two months.
Officials with the Michigan State Police and the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan continue to deny these allegations: that politics influenced the way their crime labs report the origin of marijuana extracts on reports. The MSP has repeatedly denied FOX 17’s requests for interviews.
Posted 10:30 AM, January 22, 2016, by Dana Chicklas, Updated at 06:30pm, January 25, 2016
Stay with FOX 17 for developments on this case.
Forensic scientists blast State Police crime lab THC policy as man fights to get son back
Maxwell Lorincz lives in Spring Lake near Lake Michigan with his wife and their six-year-old son. At least, they did live with their son, until a year and a half ago.
They lost custody of him after Lorincz was charged with a felony for possessing synthetic THC. He’s a card-carrying medical marijuana patient. But that hasn’t helped in his fight to get his son back.
So for now, the family gets unsupervised visits for a few hours every week.
“Normally after he leaves we pick up his room. But the last few times, he’s gotten a little upset when we do, so we’ve been trying to leave his characters right where he left them every time he leaves,” Lorincz says as he and his wife Erica Chittenden stand in their son Dante’s bedroom, which is messy with toys strewn all over the place.
Lorincz says taking marijuana in concentrated oil form is the best way to help his severe back pain, the result of a work-related accident.
In 2014, Chittenden needed medical attention, so they called 9-1-1. A police officer arrived with paramedics. The officer found a lid in their home with a small amount of residue from marijuana oil on it.
“He picked it up and asked what it was. And I told him. He took it and said that they were going to take it for testing,” said Lorincz.
The way the State Police crime lab handled that sample is one reason Lorincz is having a hard time getting his son back.
In 2013, the Michigan State Police quietly changed a policy at its crime labs.
It instructed its lab technicians to change how they handle samples containing THC. That’s the chemical in marijuana responsible for its psychological effects.
It used to be that if it was obvious that a crime lab sample came from a marijuana plant, the lab report would say that. Now, unless there’s visible plant material in the sample, the lab must say the origin is unknown.
That’s important. It means prosecutors can pursue felony charges because they can argue in court that the drugs police found are synthetic. Possessing synthetic THC carries tougher penalties than possessing marijuana from a plant. It’s the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor.
The Michigan Public Radio Network first reported on the policy change and Lorincz’s case in October.
The Ottawa County Prosecutor’s office has not responded to multiple requests for comment about Lorincz’s case.
A number of forensic scientists are now speaking out against the policy, saying there’s no way most or any of the samples in question contain synthetic THC.
“It is unreasonable to make any qualifying statements that this stuff might be synthetic. It is not a reasonable scientific conclusion that one could reach,” said Dr. Jay Siegel, a professor emeritus of forensic science at Michigan State University who has worked in crime labs across the country.
Sigel also instructed many technicians in the State Police crime lab, including its current director who oversaw the implementation of the THC policy.
He says samples that come from marijuana hold obvious clues – such as other chemicals that come from marijuana plants. He says those would be extremely difficult if not impossible to create in a lab – and there’s no reason anyone would want to.
Siegel says the only explanation he can come up with for the policy change is political pressure.
“And if that’s the case, that’s deplorable. All the things I ever taught those students was that you have to be a scientist here. You have to be true to the science and not the political or any other kind of pressure,” he said.
The former director of the state crime lab agrees.
“You’re really getting into an ugly area that really gets into professional ethics as far as the reporting of testing results. And my understanding is, having looked at this, is that that line was crossed,” said John Collins, who is also a former student of Siegel’s.
Collins says he quit as head of the crime lab in part because of what he calls “tremendous” pressure from prosecutors to present evidence in a way that’s beneficial to them.
“There are some that really I think view forensic science as being a prosecution business as opposed to a science business,” he said.
Lorincz’s lawyer and several other criminal defense attorneys have formally requested a federal review of the crime lab policy, and hope it will be struck down.
“The lab specifically changed their policy to report these things in a way that they could arrest patients or caregivers, instead of honoring the protections of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. And that is what this case turned into,” said Michael Komorn, who is representing Lorincz in both his criminal and child custody cases.
Komorn uncovered State Police e-mails through a Freedom of Information Act request that show internal debate about whether to adopt the policy. His associates provided the documents to the Michigan Public Radio Network in October.
Some lab technicians were adamantly against the policy switch.
“It is unreasonable to make any qualifying statements that this stuff might be synthetic.
It is not a reasonable scientific conclusion that one could reach.”
“This could lead to the wrong charge of possession of synthetic THC and the ultimate wrongful conviction of an individual. For the laboratory to contribute to this possible miscarriage of justice would be a huge black eye for the Division and the Department,” said Lansing crime lab Controlled Substances Unit Supervisor Bradley Choate in an email to colleagues.
Choate pointed out in an e-mail that the lab’s guiding principles state “that ‘Conclusions are based on the evidence and the reference material relevant to the evidence, not on extraneous information, political pressure, or other outside influences.’”
Many others in the correspondence appeared to back the policy change.
“…other cannablnoids [sic] *can* be manufactured synthetically, just as THC can be,” wrote Inspector John Bowen with MSP’s Quality Assurance & Technical Development division.
“Is it likely that someone went to the trouble to manufacture THC and two other cannabinoids, mix them up, and bake them into a pan of brownies? Of course not. That doesn’t mean we should change the results to show we found Marijuana. We didn’t, because Marijuana is a plant, and we didn’t find plant parts.”
“I’m just hoping to get this law clarified and get our son back.”
When asked for comment for this piece, a State Police spokesperson said the department did not want to “dignify (the) allegations with any interviews.” But she said the policy change was needed to create consistency between all of its labs across the state. And she said it’s up to prosecutors to decide which charges to pursue.
The documents uncovered by Komorn show clearly that an employee of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan (PAAM) offered advice in favor of the policy switch. But PAAM says it did not direct or pressure the lab to adopt it.
Meanwhile, Max Lorincz and his wife say they just want the whole ordeal to be over.
“I’m just hoping to get this law clarified and get our son back.”
Listen to the Radio Broadcast
Hear how a change in state police testing policy is having far-reaching effects
By Jake Neher • Jan 18, 2016
Detroit police make arrests at marijuana dispensary
Detroit police arrested two people and confiscated two firearms and drugs during a raid on a marijuana dispensary Tuesday afternoon.
Police seized 4,100 grams of marijuana (about 9 pounds), and removed 12 edible marijuana foods from the shelves at Detroit Medz, said Sgt. Cassandra Lewis of Detroit police Media Relations.
“Our Major Violators Unit executed a search warrant at the location at 4:30 p.m.,” Lewis said.
According to state law, only Michiganders who possess state registry cards can legally use medical marijuana, but at the shop “they were just selling to anybody who walked in,” she said.
Related: Police raids of pot dispensaries lead to arrests
Detroit does not have an ordinance regulating dispensaries. Detroit police favor having dispensaries be regulated, “so that it’s safe not just for the customers but also for the community,” Lewis added.
In addition, police say flyers advertising Detroit Medz, located at Hubbell and Puritan, were reportedly being distributed near John R. King Academic and Performing Arts Academy when a commencement exercise was taking place.
Some law enforcement agencies claim all dispensaries are illegal until the state Legislature passes a law allowing them. State Attorney General Bill Schuette agrees with that assessment.
The city of Detroit is overdue for regulating its fast-spreading dispensaries, said Winfred Blackmon, a community leader in northwest Detroit who is outspoken about medical-marijuana commerce.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Enough with this silly war on marijuana
“I’m not against this for people who are sick, but what we want is regulation,” said Blackmon, 67, chairman of the Metropolitan Detroit Community Action Coalition – a group of community leaders from across the city. He also heads a major homeowners group in northwest Detroit called the Schaefer-7/8-Lodge Association.
Blackmon has been complaining to the city about dispensaries for months and has been in regular contact with Councilman James Tate as well as with state legislators about the need to regulate them, he said.
A local ordinance, spelling out what Detroit authorities expect of the city’s dispensaries, would protect legitimate operators and weed out any that are undesirable, added Southfield attorney Michael Komorn, president of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association.
But without such regulation in place, Tuesday’s raid was ill-advised because Detroit police should focus on violent crime – not dispensaries, Komorn said.
“I can’t speak to this specific location, but there’s a lot of dispensaries operating in Detroit and it’s unfortunate that Detroit’s leaders and citizens seem to be at odds about whether they should be there. Some people still see medical marijuana as just dope,” he said.
“These places are not causing lawlessness and they’re not hurting property values in the city,” Komorn said.
If you or someone you know is facing charges as a result of Medical Marijuana recommended to you as a medical marijuana patient under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, contact Komorn Law and ensure your rights are protected. Michael Komorn is recognized as a leading expert on the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. He is the President of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), a nonprofit patient advocacy group which advocates for the rights of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.
Contact us for a free no-obligation case evaluation at 800-656-3557.
Michigan Prosecutors Pressured Lab on Medical Marijuana Results
THE MICHIGAN STATE POLICE Forensic Science Division finds itself embroiled in scandal as newly released emails paint a picture of a crime lab in turmoil over how to classify marijuana. Attorneys and medical marijuana advocates accuse Michigan prosecutors of pressuring the state’s crime lab to falsely classify the origins of THC found in hash oils and marijuana edibles as “origin unknown.”
Prosecutors exploited the ambiguity to charge medical marijuana users for possession of synthetic THC, despite the fact that the personal use of medical marijuana has been legal in Michigan since it was approved by voters in 2008. Under Michigan law, possession of synthetic THC constitutes a felony, whereas possession of marijuana and its derivatives by someone who is not a licensed medical marijuana user is a misdemeanor.
The emails were obtained by Michael Komorn, lead lawyer for Max Lorincz, a medical marijuana patient who lost custody of his child and now faces felony charges after the lab’s misleading classification of hash oil found in his home.
“I’d never seen a lab report reporting origin unknown,” Komorn told The Intercept. “What was produced for us was the most unbelievable set of documents I’ve ever seen.”
The emails show that as Michigan forensic scientists debated how to classify oil and wax produced from marijuana plants, they were pressured by police and prosecutors to classify the products in a way that would facilitate harsher drug convictions.
“It is highly doubtful,” a forensic scientist named Scott Penabaker wrote in May 2013, “that any of these Med. Mari. products we are seeing have THC that was synthesized. This would be completely impractical.” And in February 2014, the supervisor of Lansing, Michigan’s controlled substances unit, Bradley Choate, wrote that a misleading identification of THC “could lead to the wrong charge of possession of synthetic THC and the ultimate wrongful conviction of an individual.” Lab inspector John Bowen, referring to the THC in edibles and oils, agreed: “Is it likely that someone went to the trouble to manufacture THC and two other cannabinoids, mix them up, and bake them into a pan of brownies? Of course not.”
Despite the unlikelihood that Lorincz and others were somehow cooking up synthetic THC, Andy Fias, a state police lieutenant with West Michigan’s regional drug task force, reached out to the Forensic Science Division in January 2015. “We are encountering a significant amount of THC wax and oil,” he wrote. “If we were to seized [sic] the wax/oil from a card carrying patient or caregiver and it comes back as marijuana, we will not have PC [probable cause] for the arrests.”
Fias had heard that lab analysts were classifying some oil as marijuana rather than THC. He asked: “Is there a way to get this changed? Our prosecutors are willing to argue that one speck of marijuana does not turn the larger quantity of oil/wax into marijuana.”
That aggressive — and intellectually dishonest — prosecutorial mindset explains what happened to Lorincz last year.
On September 24, 2014, Lorincz called 911 from his Spring Lake, Michigan, home when his wife experienced an emergency. “The paramedics came in to assist my wife, and while they were assisting my wife the sheriff came in from the outside,” the 35-year-old father told me. It was then that the officer discovered hash oil on the kitchen counter. “The whole thing is ridiculous,” said Lorincz, who at the time possessed a Michigan medical marijuana card. “I didn’t commit any crime.”
Authorities didn’t see it that way.
The Ottawa County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, led by Ronald Frantz, charged Lorincz with misdemeanor marijuana possession. Instead of pleading guilty, he fought the charge on the grounds that his medical marijuana card allowed him to legally possess the hash. Prosecutors responded in February by charging Lorincz with possession of synthetic THC, a felony.
Because the crime lab claimed to be unable to determine the origin of the THC in the hash oil, prosecutors were able to allege that Lorincz’s oil was not made from marijuana.
Jeff Frazier, a former ACLU attorney who is also working on Lorincz’s case, accuses the state’s prosecutors of circumventing the medical marijuana law passed in 2008 because of their intense opposition to marijuana.
“The lab is intentionally reporting nonexistent felonies,” said Frazier, “and the prosecutors are going after medical marijuana patients with these lab reports that are fraudulent.”
Activists believe that Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette may be behind the pressure on the crime lab. In 2008 Schuette led the opposition to the successful initiative. “He’s been opposed to medical marijuana since the get-go and has used his office to circumvent the law,” said Charmie Gholson, a drug policy reform advocate based in Michigan.
Gregoire Michaud, director of Michigan’s Forensic Science Division, wrote in a July 2013 email that “In my meeting with PAAM [Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan] it was decided that any questions regarding law interpretation (e.g., recent controlled substance cases) will be directed thru the applicable Technical Director who will then reach out to Mr. Ken Stecker.”
Kenneth Stecker, an official with PAAM, stridently opposes medical marijuana usage and in a 2012 speech said, “I literally every night look at websites, blogs, everything for two to three hours dealing with the medical marijuana issue.” At the time, Stecker said that he had given “over 150, 200 presentations” on the “hornet’s nest” of medical marijuana.
A December 2013 email quotes Stecker as saying, “THC is a schedule 1 drug regardless of where it comes from.” He neglected to mention that penalties for possession very much depend on where it comes from.
John Collins, a former director of the Forensic Science Division, told Fox 17 television, which first reported Lorincz’s case earlier this year, that prosecutors were playing politics with science. “In my experience, it was just a nonstop political game that really got frustrating, and it wore down the morale of our staff, and it quite honestly, it wore me down.”
“It was really a big deal for me to let people understand that our laboratories were not in the prosecution business, they’re not in the conviction business, they’re in the science business,” Collins told Fox 17. “And if we don’t position ourselves as being in the science business, then we really start to go down a path that’s going to lead us to a lot of trouble.”
The Michigan State Police provided the following statement:
The ultimate decision on what to charge an individual with rests with the prosecutor. The role of the laboratory is to determine whether marihuana or THC are present. Michigan State Police laboratory policy was changed to include the statement “origin unknown” when it is not possible to determine if THC originates from a plant (marihuana) or synthetic means. This change makes it clear that the source of the THC should not be assumed from the lab results.
Bill Schuette and Ronald Frantz did not respond to requests for comment. Kenneth Stecker declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Max Lorincz’s life remains in limbo, and his 6-year-old son is in foster care. Currently, he gets a few hours per week of visitation, but father and son have been apart for over a year now.
“It’s been the worst year of me and my wife’s life,” Lorincz said. “You’re talking about taking away an entire year of bonding with our son. It’s something we can never get back.”
This isn’t the first time conviction-hungry Michigan prosecutors have destroyed the lives of medical marijuana users.
In 2014, prosecutors charged Kent County sheriff’s sergeant Timothy Bernhardt with running a drug house because he received and distributed marijuana butter. Bernhardt was a licensed medical marijuana patient but not a licensed caregiver and thus was not permitted to distribute the drug to other users.
In a lab report from Bernhardt’s case, the crime lab classified Bernhardt’s marijuana butter as THC and investigators claimed to be unable to identify its origin. Armed with that report, prosecutors in Kent County went after Bernhardt with full force. Bernhardt eventually pleaded guilty to the drug house charge and was forced to resign after 22 years with the department, even though the butter was being used for medical purposes. He faced up to two years in prison, but a month before the sentencing hearing he killed himself.
“They killed him,” said Gholson. “They have blood on their hands.”
Just days before Bernhardt’s suicide, a Kent County prosecutor named Tim McMorrow told a state court that Michigan voters, despite their overwhelming approval of medical marijuana, do not have the final say. “The voters do not have a right to adopt anything they want,” McMorrrow said. “Something doesn’t become valid because the voters voted for it.”
Article By – Juan Thompson – Nov. 14 2015, 8:43 a.m.
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept
The Intercept is an online publication launched in February 2014 by First Look Media, the news organization created and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.[2]
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill are the editors. The magazine serves as a platform to report on the documents released by Edward Snowden in the short term, and to “produce fearless, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues” in the long term
“A primary function of The Intercept is to insist upon and defend our press freedoms from those who wish to infringe them. We are determined to move forward with what we believe is essential reporting in the public interest and with a commitment to the ideal that a truly free and independent press is a vital component of any healthy democratic society. […] Our focus in this very initial stage will be overwhelmingly on the NSA story. We will use all forms of digital media for our reporting. We will publish original source documents on which our reporting is based. We will have reporters in Washington covering reactions to these revelations and the ongoing reform efforts. We will provide commentary from our journalists, including the return of Glenn Greenwald’s regular column. We will engage with our readers in the comment section. We will host outside experts to write op-eds and contribute news items.
Our longer-term mission is to provide aggressive and independent adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues, from secrecy, criminal and civil justice abuses and civil liberties violations to media conduct, societal inequality and all forms of financial and political corruption. The editorial independence of our journalists will be guaranteed, and they will be encouraged to pursue their journalistic passion, areas of interest, and unique voices.
We believe the prime value of journalism is that it imposes transparency, and thus accountability, on those who wield the greatest governmental and corporate power. Our journalists will be not only permitted, but encouraged, to pursue stories without regard to whom they might alienate.”