Judge Jay M. Bloom has rejected a request from the owner of a medical-marijuana business to force the District Attorney’s Office to return more than $100,000 in cash seized, given that no criminal charges have been filed.

In a ruling dated Wednesday and received by lawyers in the case on Friday, Bloom said that a San Diego police detective successfully demonstrated probable cause to believe criminal activity was occurring when he gained judicial approval for a January raid of the Kearny Mesa business.

“The test here is not one of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or clear and convincing evidence,” the San Diego Superior Court judge wrote. “It is simply one of probable cause.”

Lawyers for James Slatic, owner of the Med-West Distribution medical-pot company, said Friday that they would appeal the ruling as soon as next month.


“The court’s decision allows the government to take an entire family’s money based on mere suspicion that one family member committed a crime,” said Wesley Hottot of the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy law group representing Slatic.

“That isn’t just wrong; it’s unconstitutional,” Hottot said. “And we will be appealing to ensure that the Slatics’ money is quickly returned to them.”

Dozens of drug agents entered the business in January and seized more than $324,000 in cash, computers and other records and the inventory of pot-laced products like edibles, creams and vaping cartridges.

Police arrested two employees on site, and they were later released without criminal charges. Slatic also has not been charged with any crimes as a result of the raid.


Almost three dozen employees lost their jobs when the business closed after the drug sweep, Slatic says.

In addition to seizing cash and property at the Med-West headquarters, police froze and then seized Slatic’s personal bank account and those of his wife and two daughters.

Investigators said the personal assets were likely derived from criminal activity because Slatic transferred money between his business and family accounts.

The return-of-assets case only concerned the cash that was confiscated from Slatic and his family.


In affidavits supporting the seizures, San Diego police Det. Mark Carlson said the firm appeared to be extracting marijuana illegally to make concentrated pot products. He did not identify Med-West as a medical-pot business permitted under California’s Proposition 215.

“You can’t include the entire history of the world” in affidavits, Carlson testified at a court hearing Monday.

Slatic and a chemical scientist testified at the same hearing that Med-West was not extracting marijuana to make a concentrated form of pot. Instead, the company was refining it under a process that is legal under state marijuana laws, they said.

Judge Bloom said some supplies found in the raid could be used in an extraction process, so probable cause for seizing the Slatics’ assets existed.


Witnesses “at the hearing all established the marijuana extraction process at Mr. Slatic’s business involved the use of ethanol, which is a flammable product,” the judge wrote. “This type of extraction is a violation of Health and Safety Code 11379.6 concerning the manufacturing of marijuana.”

One of Slatic’s witnesses, a San Diego scientist named Andrew Pham, testified the ethanol was used in the refinement process, not extraction, and that extraction could not be done with the lab equipment on hand.

The District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the ruling, saying the case is still being reviewed for possible criminal charges.

The lack of criminal charges to date did not escape the judge.


“The court does have some concern with the fact the People have kept money for nearly 10 months without filing a case,” he wrote. “Before the year is up from the date of the seizure, the People will have to file a forfeiture case or a criminal case to keep the funds.”

The District Attorney’s Office and San Diego police and sheriff’s departments collect millions of dollars a year under the asset seizure program.

A bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September requires criminal convictions before law enforcement agencies can keep most seized assets, but the new law does not go into effect until January.

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald