Will Also Be Required To Pay A $10,000 Fine

A Colorado Judge has sentenced a California pilot to two years probation and imposed a $10,000 fine for transporting 55 pounds of marijuana the pilot said was for medical use. Boulder District Judge Thomas Mulvihill thought that explanation was a little thin.

"I think you were dealing," the judge said in imposing sentence. "I'm not convinced this was a benevolent transfer of medical marijuana to Colorado. I hear that explanation and my eyebrows go way up."

The pilot, Carl Steven Gruber, is a professional pilot who sometimes performs at air shows and also flies for movies. The Boulder Daily Camera reports that Gruber's attorney said his flight was "inadvertently" tracked by TSA, putting his client in the middle of a drug smuggling investigation in which he was not initially a target. Attorney David Moorhead said Homeland Security "was tracking the wrong plane, and they got lucky."

Moorhead admitted that his client knew the transport was probably illegal, but he didn't "think it was a big deal" to carry the cannabis to a medical marijuana facility in Colorado.

Gruber has lost everything as a result of the arrest, including his house and his airplane, which was seized. The judge acknowledged the hardship and reduced the fine from $25,000 to $10,000.

Judge Mulvihill will allow Gruber to serve out his probation in California, where he resides.

(Boulder County Sheriff's photo)

FMI: www.courts.state.co.us/Index.cfm