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Crime & Safety

Palm Desert Medical Marijuana Case Delayed

Stacy Robert Hochanadel, owner of CannaHelp in Palm Springs, is accused of possession of marijuana for sale, transport and sale of marijuana and keeping a place to sell controlled substances.

A Palm Springs medical marijuana dispensary owner accused of illegally operating a pot collective in Palm Desert will not go on trial until at least January.

Motions in the trial for Stacy Robert Hochanadel, owner of CannaHelp in Palm Springs, were scheduled to be heard beginning today but were pushed to Jan. 9, according to defense attorney Ulrich McNulty.

A December trial date was previously set for Hochanadel, who is charged with possession of marijuana for sale, transport and sale of marijuana and keeping a place to sell controlled substances.

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Hochanadel, who was arrested in December 2006, is free on his own recognizance.

In 2008, Riverside County Superior Court Judge David Downing ruled that a search warrant used to raid the defendant's Palm Desert dispensary was flawed because sheriff's Investigator Robert Garcia had not been trained to handle medical marijuana cases.

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The sheriff's department alleged the dispensary violated the state's medical marijuana law because it was turning a profit.

In August 2009, a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego unanimously ruled that Downing wrongly threw out the search warrant, and the Riverside County District Attorney's Office resumed the prosecution in late January 2010.

McNulty said previously that Hochanadel had a business license and an agreement with the sheriff's department, and the business was being operated transparently.

Hochanadel opened CannaHelp, then known as Hempies, in September 2005. His lease expired in September 2007, and he closed the collective following the Palm Desert City Council's decision to ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

He reopened the dispensary in Palm Springs, where he has one of three permits to operate there.

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