Charges Reduced for Hortipharm Defendants

Easily the highest-profile medical marijuana case in Santa Barbara history was resolved this week in Judge Brian Hill’s courtroom. Thanks to a series of plea deals negotiated behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon, the six remaining defendants from last year’s raid on the now closed upper State Street cannabis club Hortipharm pleaded “no contest” to a variety of vastly reduced charges. Their pleas were in exchange for the dismissal of nearly all of the 43 felony indictments handed down by the Grand Jury in the case this past April for everything from cultivation and distribution to money laundering and utilities theft.

Hortipharm owner Josh Braun who, by pleading to one felony count of marijuana sales and one misdemeanor charge of money laundering, ended up with the stiffest sentence — deadpanned in the wake of the ruling, “Justice has been served, I guess. Obviously I am not happy about it, but at least my wife gets to go home tonight with a clear name and all the charges against her dropped — that is something I am very happy about.”

Specifically, as per the deal hashed out by Deputy District Attorney Von Nguyen, Braun, who was initially given a $1-million bail amount at the time of his arrest last summer, is facing a maximum of 240 days in County Jail and five years of felony probation. He’s also required to forfeit all his cash assets, his car and power boat, and pay some $8,000 in restitution fees to Southern California Edison for electricity stolen at a residence he owned that was being used as a grow house. Additionally, in exchange for Braun’s plea, his wife, Dayli Braun, had all the charges against her dismissed, including several counts of money laundering related to her ownership of Pizza Guru, the popular health food pizzeria right next door to the former Hortipharm site. Dayli Braun will also have some $18,300 of seized money, much of it related to Pizza Guru, returned to her.