It didn’t take a psychic to see that the charges against California medical marijuana brainchild Dennis Peron were frivolous from the beginning, and would be dropped. According to a story I was e-mail from San Francisco’s ASA Chapter, the charges stemming from an August 4, 2010 raid on Dennis Peron’s home have been dropped.
“I knew it was going to happen,” a relieved, but tired-sounding Peron said. “They couldn’t meet the burden of proof — this case against me was completely fabricated.”
Erica Derryck, spokeswoman with the DA’s office, released the following statement: “We dismissed the case against Dennis Peron today because additional investigation of the computer forensic evidence does not allow us to meet our burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“They dragged my name through the mud for a year … and now I’m going to sue them,” Peron vows. “I’m going to sue [the San Francisco Police Department] for a million dollars.”
“It was mine. I grew it and I was in the process of smoking it,” he said at the time. But he long denied any connection with the drugs or the naughty pictures, which were of “fully clothed girls,” Peron, who has been openly gay since the 1960s, told us. What’s more, they were found only through a forensic search of a computer hard drive’s deleted files on a machine used by a guest, Peron said — and were pretty damn tame.
“These [pictures] were like Macy’s ads,” he says. “They manufactured a drug case and a porno case just to hurt me. For what reason? I don’t know.”
Peron pledged this will be the last time he will ever be raided. “I said that the last time, but now I hope it’s true,” he says. “I’m never going to give them any reason — I’m only going to rent the place to rich Europeans; I will never rent to serviceable locals who might be doing drugs. I assure you, nothing but Boy Scouts here.”
But he did pledge to return to court, this time as the plaintiff: “I’m going to sue them. SFPD, and anybody else. They soiled my name for no reason.”
