Marijuana Plants Found in Mansion

Michael Fleeman / Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) In a fivestory, castlestyle mansion in Ronald
Reagan's neighborhood, authorities discovered a major marijuanagrowing
operation, allegedly run by an advocate for the medical use of marijuana.

Authorities arrested Todd McCormick and others Tuesday night and seized
what detectives counted as 4,000 marijuana plants with an estimated value
of $25 million, one of the biggest pot busts in Los Angeles sheriff's
history.

McCormick, 27, appeared in federal court Wednesday afternoon on charges he
was growing the highgrade marijuana plants under artificial lights on four
of the mansion's floors and on the back patio.

McCormick is the founder of a San Diego cannabis club and was campaigned
for California's voterapproved measure to legalize the medicinal use of
marijuana in some instances. A friend said McCormick was cultivating the
pot to give to cancer sufferers like himself to ease their pain.

"He was not doing it for money," said Dennis Peron of San Francisco's
Cannabis Club. "I know this guy. He was doing it for love and compassion.
He is the most altruistic person you'll ever meet."

McCormick and others were charged with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana
plants and with possession with intent to distribute marijuana plants. If
convicted, they face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James McMahon ordered McCormick not to use or sell
marijuana as a condition of his $100,000 bail.

Responding to the judge's order that his client not use marijuana, attorney
Alan Isaacman said outside court, "He will be in great pain, I suspect. He
has grown to depend on it."

Sheriff's deputies, who conducted the raid on the $6,000amonth rental
mansion in BelAir's celebritylined Stone Canyon Road, said the marijuana
operation was far in excess of anything McCormick could use for medical
treatments. "Four thousand plants should make him very healthy," Sheriff
Sherman Block said.

McCormick has said that he has smoked marijuana since age 12 to relieve
pain from a rare type of bone cancer.

In 1995, he founded the San Diego Compassionate Use Club, which he had
described as a place that supplies cannabis to seriously ill people.

"I'm very proud of him because he fights for what he believes in. I'm proud
of him and I'm somewhat ashamed of my government," said his mother, Ann
McCormick, from her home in Pawtucket, R.I.

"People are being denied access to something that can relieve their pain,"
she said. "They're being thrown in jail for trying to survive."

The mansion, which resembles castle, sits on the side of a steep canyon
wall about three miles from the campus of UCLA in one of the most exclusive
neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Other homes in the area belong to Elizabeth
Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Reagan.

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