Prince of Pot' says plea deal rejected

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http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/406946

Mar 28, 2008 05:44 PM
Greg Joyce
THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER–British Columbia's self-proclaimed "prince of pot" says the Canadian government has nixed a plea bargain with U.S. authorities that would have meant five years in prison.

Marc Emery is charged in the U.S. with selling seeds over the Internet.

He said Friday he was willing to accept a five-year deal but the Canadian government wasn't.

"I was willing to accept the deal that would put me in jail for five years on a 10-year sentence, mostly served in Canada," Emery said at a news conference in the Vapour Lounge, newly opened above the downtown headquarters where he sells marijuana paraphernalia.

Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams, his associates and co-accused, are also wanted in the U.S.

Reports say they have been offered sentences in the three- to five-month range in exchange for guilty pleas.

"The Americans were receptive and all that was required was for this deal to go down was for the Conservative government to rubber stamp it," Emery said.

"All we needed was the Conservative government to agree to this and they refused."

Spokespersons for the U.S. and Canadian governments were not immediately available to comment.

The U.S. government has been trying to extradite Emery on charges he sold marijuana seeds over the Internet and sent them through the mail.

Emery says U.S. officials offered him a deal last fall that would involve him pleading guilty on both sides of the border while receiving a 10-year sentence that required him to serve five years behind bars. Most of the prison time would be served in Canada, he said.

Emery said Canadian authorities have known for years about his business.

"The government is far from innocent in this situation," he said.

He said he has paid more than $500,000 in taxes between 1999 to 2005 "and I put on my income tax declarations that I was a marijuana seed vendor.

"I used to send, and still do send, over 10 years now, every member of Parliament gets a copy of my magazine and the seed catalogue in it."

He said he did not keep much of the "millions of dollars" he made selling seeds.

"The whole purpose of raising millions of dollars through the sale of seeds was to provide the cannabis legalization movement with the funding it needed and we contributed to politicians at all levels," Emery said.

The extradition case against Emery was put over earlier this month until April 9 at the request of his lawyer and a federal prosecutor representing the U.S. Justice Department.

Emery has been highly visible to Canadian authorities for years, holding highly publicized pot "smoke-ins" in a drive to legalize the drug.

He once conducted a cross-Canada tour during which he smoked cartoon-sized joints in front of city police departments.

He spent two months in a Saskatoon jail after one of his pro-pot protests.