2 accused of break-in at pot club after raid OAKLAND

Two men were in custody Friday on suspicion of breaking into a downtown Oakland building hours after it was raided by federal drug agents during a marijuana investigation, authorities said.

Arthur Palmer, 44, and Kenneth Goss, 41, both of Oakland, broke into 3333 Telegraph Ave. about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, police said. Officers responding to a report of a burglary in progress caught them as they were going out the back door, police said.

Agents with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration had left the building about 12 hours earlier after raiding it early Wednesday, one of 10 such operations at homes and medical-marijuana dispensaries in San Jose, San Mateo and other cities.

No arrests have been made and the details of the case remain sealed in U.S. District Court. But Ken Estes, 50, who manages the dispensaries, said Friday that he and several of his managers whose homes were raided fear they will be arrested.

Estes said agents seized 318 marijuana plants and $100,000 during the raids - and he blames the DEA for leaving his Oakland location open to burglars.

He said the agents apparently left some bags of marijuana behind, which made it tempting for the suspects.

Oakland police did not say what Palmer and Goss allegedly took from the building, and Estes isn't sure which items disappeared in the burglary and which in the DEA raid.

The federal agents "didn't even secure it up," Estes said of the building. "They wrapped an extension cord around the door. I'm sure it's not the only building that's burglarized, but when people walk by and see that the back windows have been broken open and there's just an extension cord, I mean, there's a lot of people in that area of Oakland who would sneak into parts of abandoned buildings."

Estes said he had not been allowed onto the property, even after the agents left. "It has to be their fault," he said. "They take us and throw us out. We all had to leave."

Javier Pena, special agent in charge of the DEA in San Francisco, said of the building, "We secured it and we left the area. We took evidence out of the building."

Palmer is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a parole violation as well as on suspicion of burglary. Goss is being held in lieu of $30,000 bail on suspicion of burglary and possession of a controlled substance.

Estes said he is upset at the DEA investigation because "I've done nothing other than medical (marijuana). I've dedicated my life to this. The raid itself just shows that the federal government is out of touch with the American people. The raid was just mean-spirited."

Proposition 215, the initiative approved in 1996 by state voters, legalized growing and using marijuana for medical purposes and with a doctor's recommendation. Under federal law, marijuana used for any purpose is illegal.

Pena declined to comment on the investigation. But he said, "We go after the big clubs out there. We go after the biggest and the baddest."