May 19, 2014By Brian Manchester
On Thursday attorney Brian Manchester settled a synthetic marijuana case for probation. Defendant owned two stores. One was in Centre County and one was in Union County. The government alleged that Defendant was selling synthetic marijuana, also known as K2, Spice, or fake pot, from his stores in Centre County and Union County. His stores were raided in February and May of 2012. Some of the alleged substances were XLR-11 and UR-144 which the government claimed were analogues of JWH-018.
Attorney Brian Manchester assembled a team of top scientists in the field and filed several scientific motions over the past two years. These hearings exposed the position of the government’s scientist. A five day trial was scheduled to begin on June 10, 2014. After the jury was picked Mr. Manchester discussed the case with the District Attorney and pointed out the issues that they would face in trying the case. This led to an offer of probation of no more than five years with the Defendant able to argue for less. A plea was entered last Thursday for sentencing in July.
The initial offer in this case was jail. This case was investigated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. Initially there were less than a dozen charges filed against Defendant. However, the Attorney General’s office designated this as a high profile case and at the preliminary hearing almost 30 more charges were added including Corrupt Organizations, Money Laundering, Designer Drugs, and Non-Controlled Substance charges.
Charges involving synthetic marijuana are complex. The science involved is complex. If you are charged with possessing or distributing synthetic marijuana, Spice, K2, bath salts, or any other synthetic or designer drug contact the law firm of Manchester and Associates. This firm regularly handles synthetic drug cases across the state of Pennsylvania and has consulted on cases in other states.
Tags: Criminal Defense, Marijuana Case, Synthetic Marijuana, Union County,
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