Jacob Bell
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"It was like everything they said on TV was like they was talking directly to me," Clyde Christopher Gilliam III told a Henrico County judge Wednesday.
He was talking about a program he'd been following a year ago on the History Channel about the benefits of medicinal marijuana and about how he figured it was just what he needed to alleviate years of pain.
He told the judge about the 27-foot fall from his family's Prince Edward County grain silo in 1997 that left him a bag of broken extremities: two broken legs, nine lost teeth, a broken jaw, broken ribs and a sideways nose that sports more tracks than a railyard.
"I was pretty broke up," Gilliam, 50, told Circuit Judge Burnett Miller III. He said he has been taking about 500 milligrams of oxycodone a day for more than a decade. He walks sort of sideways like a sand crab and puts a stabilizing hand to the ground to get up steps.
"I thought I'd had a heart attack once; turned out to be opiate withdrawal," he said.
Life has been a mixed bag. The year before the silo fall, Gilliam and his wife won $68,000 in the Cash 5 lottery. That did nothing to ease the pain of broken bones. The winnings bought a vacation home, now sold because of medical costs.
So Gilliam began growing marijuana in his backyard off Skipwith Road, just a little patch mixed in with the tomatoes beside the neighbor's fence. Fishhooks kept the dogs off the crop, which by September last year numbered 37 plants, a few of which reached 8 feet tall.
A neighbor called Crime Stoppers, drug investigators cut down the crop, and on Wednesday, they wheeled five big bags of the stuff into court. On the witness stand, detectives spelled out the crop's value with the same precision Gilliam enumerated his medication levels: the 81 pounds could bring as much as $243,000, they said.
Gilliam was charged with possession with intent to distribute and faced a possible 40-year sentence.
Even a heavy user of medicinal marijuana likely wouldn't consume more than a half ounce a week, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney David Giroux argued. But defense lawyer Jeffrey L. Everhart stressed the absence in Gilliam's modest home of any materials – plastic bags, ties, scales, account ledgers and other items – that would suggest a distribution operation.
"I'd never growed it before, and I'd never seen it growed before," Gilliam said. "I didn't have a clue."
Giroux honed in on Gilliam's financial straits but stepped into a sad tale of a couple struggling to survive. Gilliam's wife is bedridden, suffering from degenerative bone disease, he testified. She recently broke a rod in her back meant to straighten her bent spine. An 18-inch scar parallels her backbone.
"They filleted her like a fish," Gilliam told the court. "Split her wide open." Now the couple survives on help from churchgoers and disability checks.
"We pay our bills," Gilliam testified, "but there's not much left over, to tell you the truth. We eat a lot of soup and sandwiches."
Burnett pondered the bent and broken defendant's future and a past that included a conviction 30 years ago of marijuana possession. The judge sided with Everhart's argument, convicting Gilliam of misdemeanor possession. Gilliam was sentenced to pay a $500 fine and spend 30 days in jail.
Burnett ordered Gilliam to show up at the jail Friday at 8 p.m., giving Gilliam time to make arrangements for his wife's care and his own medicinal needs behind bars.
After court, Gilliam called Everhart his hero and when he half-crawled his way into his home Wednesday night, he hugged his wife, Lisa, and told her to pray.
"I done wrong, but I wasn't trying to harm anybody, just take care of myself," he said. "I guess the lesson is don't grow marijuana in Henrico County."
News Hawk- GuitarMan313 420 MAGAZINE
Source: timesdispatch.com
Author: Bill McKelway
Contact: Contact Us | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Copyright: ©2011 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC
Website: Henrico medical marijuana case ends well for hobbled defendant | Richmond Times-Dispatch
He was talking about a program he'd been following a year ago on the History Channel about the benefits of medicinal marijuana and about how he figured it was just what he needed to alleviate years of pain.
He told the judge about the 27-foot fall from his family's Prince Edward County grain silo in 1997 that left him a bag of broken extremities: two broken legs, nine lost teeth, a broken jaw, broken ribs and a sideways nose that sports more tracks than a railyard.
"I was pretty broke up," Gilliam, 50, told Circuit Judge Burnett Miller III. He said he has been taking about 500 milligrams of oxycodone a day for more than a decade. He walks sort of sideways like a sand crab and puts a stabilizing hand to the ground to get up steps.
"I thought I'd had a heart attack once; turned out to be opiate withdrawal," he said.
Life has been a mixed bag. The year before the silo fall, Gilliam and his wife won $68,000 in the Cash 5 lottery. That did nothing to ease the pain of broken bones. The winnings bought a vacation home, now sold because of medical costs.
So Gilliam began growing marijuana in his backyard off Skipwith Road, just a little patch mixed in with the tomatoes beside the neighbor's fence. Fishhooks kept the dogs off the crop, which by September last year numbered 37 plants, a few of which reached 8 feet tall.
A neighbor called Crime Stoppers, drug investigators cut down the crop, and on Wednesday, they wheeled five big bags of the stuff into court. On the witness stand, detectives spelled out the crop's value with the same precision Gilliam enumerated his medication levels: the 81 pounds could bring as much as $243,000, they said.
Gilliam was charged with possession with intent to distribute and faced a possible 40-year sentence.
Even a heavy user of medicinal marijuana likely wouldn't consume more than a half ounce a week, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney David Giroux argued. But defense lawyer Jeffrey L. Everhart stressed the absence in Gilliam's modest home of any materials – plastic bags, ties, scales, account ledgers and other items – that would suggest a distribution operation.
"I'd never growed it before, and I'd never seen it growed before," Gilliam said. "I didn't have a clue."
Giroux honed in on Gilliam's financial straits but stepped into a sad tale of a couple struggling to survive. Gilliam's wife is bedridden, suffering from degenerative bone disease, he testified. She recently broke a rod in her back meant to straighten her bent spine. An 18-inch scar parallels her backbone.
"They filleted her like a fish," Gilliam told the court. "Split her wide open." Now the couple survives on help from churchgoers and disability checks.
"We pay our bills," Gilliam testified, "but there's not much left over, to tell you the truth. We eat a lot of soup and sandwiches."
Burnett pondered the bent and broken defendant's future and a past that included a conviction 30 years ago of marijuana possession. The judge sided with Everhart's argument, convicting Gilliam of misdemeanor possession. Gilliam was sentenced to pay a $500 fine and spend 30 days in jail.
Burnett ordered Gilliam to show up at the jail Friday at 8 p.m., giving Gilliam time to make arrangements for his wife's care and his own medicinal needs behind bars.
After court, Gilliam called Everhart his hero and when he half-crawled his way into his home Wednesday night, he hugged his wife, Lisa, and told her to pray.
"I done wrong, but I wasn't trying to harm anybody, just take care of myself," he said. "I guess the lesson is don't grow marijuana in Henrico County."
News Hawk- GuitarMan313 420 MAGAZINE
Source: timesdispatch.com
Author: Bill McKelway
Contact: Contact Us | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Copyright: ©2011 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC
Website: Henrico medical marijuana case ends well for hobbled defendant | Richmond Times-Dispatch
