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Doctor Admits To Writing Bogus Medical Marijuana Scripts


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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) - A Grand Rapids doctor indicted in a major marijuana conspiracy admitted he wrote medical marijuana prescriptions for patients he never met to help further a criminal enterprise that earned more than $1.3 million in less than two years.


Although Dr. Gregory A. Kuldanek was not a leader in the conspiracy, his role was integral to the operation, he told U.S. District Court Magistrate Phillip Green during a 90-minute plea hearing Thursday.


"My intention was not to profit from the sale of marijuana,'' Kuldanek said before pleading guilty to a marijuana conspiracy charge. The 57-year-old physician remains free on bond pending sentencing in March.


Thursday's plea came just hours before the U.S. Attorney's Office in Grand Rapids filed a 23-page superseding indictment charging four more people in the 2 ½-year conspiracy. That brings to 10 the number of people charged as part of a year-long investigation into illegal grow operations in Kent County.


At the head of the conspiracy is Betty Lee Jenkins and her partner, Phillip Joseph Walsh, investigators allege. Both were charged Thursday in a superseding indictment with conspiracy to manufacture 100 or more marijuana plants and maintaining drug-involved premises.


Kuldanek, a respected internal medicine specialist who formerly worked at East Paris Internal Medicine Associates PC, said he's known Jenkins for more than two years. That affiliation proved to be his undoing.


Jenkins is a licensed medical marijuana caregiver whom Kuldanek said he believed to be a compassionate woman providing medical marijuana to patients suffering debilitating medical conditions.


Police see her differently. The Kent Area Narcotics Enforcement Team had been investigating her and Walsh for conspiring to grow marijuana and multiple locations in Kent County. Under Michigan's medical marijuana law, caregivers can have up to five patients, with marijuana production capped at 12 plants per patient.


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Betty Lee Jenkins charged with heading marijuana conspiracy involving hundreds of plants(Photo: Kent County Jail)



Given that restriction, Jenkins "would have no reason for bringing Kuldanek the dozens and dozens of patient certifications she had asked him to sign over time,'' federal prosecutors charged.


Even after her arrest in November, Jenkins continued recruiting medical marijuana patients to bolster business, the government says. Police obtained a search warrant for two cellphones found inside her 2006 Jeep Liberty during a July 2 traffic stop.


The search of outgoing and incoming calls is part of an ongoing investigation to determine if others are involved in illegal marijuana distribution, records in 63rd District Court show.


Kuldanek wrote medical marijuana prescriptions for his own patients but "it extended slowly over time,'' he testified. "I was screening more patients and not seeing these patients. They would recruit people for certification.''


He admitted to writing prescriptions for more than 60 people, sometimes meeting them at restaurants so he could hand out multiple prescriptions at once.


"Without the clients, they would not be able to develop a network to grow marijuana,'' Kuldanek said. "My intention was not to profit from the sale of marijuana.''


He said he based his fee on a patient's circumstances and ability to pay, never charging more than $100 for a medical marijuana prescription.


With Thursday's plea, Kuldanek could have his medical license suspended or revoked.


He agreed to forfeit his home on Seven Mile Road NE north of Slayton Lake in Kent County's Grattan Township. The government has also started forfeiture proceedings against other homes and properties it says are tied to the conspiracy.


Kuldanek faces up to five years in federal prison, but that is unlikely given his cooperation with investigators, his clean record and standing in the community.


A trial date for Jenkins and her confederates is pending.


 


http://www.wzzm13.com/story/news/crime/2014/10/30/medical-marijuana/18208101/


Edited by bobandtorey
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I don't get how this can be happening here, while Colorado, and Washington are profiting, unfettered by the feds. Isn't "pot is still a federal crime" the Jazz we've been hearing for years? I wonder how often this kind of prosecution happens in California? Is this the same group that was shipping out of state?

 

Happening more then some think I guess but it's in the news everyday provided by Google

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I don't get how this can be happening here, while Colorado, and Washington are profiting, unfettered by the feds. Isn't "pot is still a federal crime" the Jazz we've been hearing for years? I wonder how often this kind of prosecution happens in California? Is this the same group that was shipping out of state?

There musta been a lot more going on than is indicated here. The dr made $1.3 million off the criminal enterprise. Obviously a lot more to this story.

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There musta been a lot more going on than is indicated here. The dr made $1.3 million off the criminal enterprise. Obviously a lot more to this story.

 

 

I think it was the entire "criminal enterprise" that made $1.3 million. No mention of what the doc's take was. It doesn't sound as though he was all that involved in the thing, but he forfeited his house already? Must be part of a plea deal.

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I think it was the entire "criminal enterprise" that made $1.3 million. No mention of what the doc's take was. It doesn't sound as though he was all that involved in the thing, but he forfeited his house already? Must be part of a plea deal.

Yeah on further review I see you are right. But yeah he forfeited his house. Ouch! Hopefully for him the bank owned most of it.

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Wait, this guy wrote 60 "prescriptions" at a max of $100 a pop.  I'm no math major, but that works out to a whopping $6,000 yet he forfeits his house?  We either are missing some information, or this is a massive abuse of forfeiture law. Another massive abuse I should say.

Forfeiture law ain't abused, it's USED.  Unfortunately it is set up in a very unfair way.  It's the law that needs to be changed not the people using the law.  Well, ok, so it would be nice if the people using it would change too but my point is the law shouldn't be as available to be used the way it is.  It's ridiculous that the cops can raid you even if you are legal and then also take all the cash they find and valuables.  There shouldn't be the assumption that everything you have came from some illegal activity because we all know that's bogus. If you're a pt and you're raided and you never sold to any1 they will assume you were distributing if they find a wad of cash.  Then they'll take the cash and your tv and anything else of value that can be sold at one of their auctions. And taking your cash might just be what prevents u from being able to hire an attorney. It's a f-ed system. Designed to go after organized crime but they use the broad law to hit every1.

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fed designed (?)

state abused

Maybe but the root of the problem is the law that allows it so using the law isn't the abuse it's the law's existence to begin with. It's an abusive law.  But cops don't get a free pass because they don't HAVE TO use the law.

 

The problem is that the law is too broad and being used for things it wasn't designed for, in my view.

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Maybe but the root of the problem is the law that allows it so using the law isn't the abuse it's the law's existence to begin with. It's an abusive law.  But cops don't get a free pass because they don't HAVE TO use the law.

 

The problem is that the law is too broad and being used for things it wasn't designed for, in my view.

 

 

Yeah. The forfeiture laws are a real Nazi type of undertaking. Letting the police have practically unlimited and unquestionable powers is a slippery slope to Fascism. 

 

A CAMERA ON EVERY COP!  Please...

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