CannaHelp Owner Pleads Guilty To Fraudulent Business Practices
A Palm Springs medical marijuana dispensary owner pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge.
Stacy Robert Hochanadel, owner of CannaHelp in Palm Springs, pleaded guilty to the unfair competition or unlawful or fraudulent business practices count as trial proceedings were scheduled to get under way at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
Deputy District Attorney Anthony Fimbres asked that felony charges of possession of marijuana for sale, transport and sale of marijuana and keeping a place to sell controlled substances be dropped in light of the plea.
Hochanadel, who was arrested in December 2006, is free on his own recognizance pending sentencing, which is set for March 23 before Superior Court Judge James S. Hawkins.
Attorneys could not be immediately reached regarding what Hochanadel’s sentence would be.
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.
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.
Hochanadel’s attorney, Ulrich 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.
