| This should not equal life in prison. |
Back in May, we told you about Jacob Lavoro, a 19-year-old who was arrested in Round Rock, Texas after cops busted in his door and found a tray of pot brownies. Lavoro isn’t simply facing pot charges, he’s looking at anywhere from ten years to life in prison thanks to ass-backwards laws in Texas regarding hash and hash oil and how products are weighed
See, while the brownies that Lavoro allegedly made would have only contained a few grams of hash or hash oil at most, cops charged him with the weight of the brownies themselves as well as the weight of the container for a total of 660 grams. According to Texas law, possession of even one gram of hash is a felony with up to two years in the slammer. And in Lovoro’s case, cops are charging with possession and distributing more than 400 grams. That’s ten to life.
Lavoro yesterday learned that his case is being presented to a state grand jury in two weeks, but he’s hoping that the truth – that his brownies didn’t contain any more than a few grams – will get his charges reduced or dropped.
“I’m 19 years old, and I still have my whole life ahead of me. Take that into account, and I can do more good than evil,” Lavoro said after the pre-hearing.
According to Lavoro’s attorney, Jack Holmes, the brownies Lavoro produced only contained about 2.5 grams of hash, which would mean his client should be charged with a second-degree felony and only face up to twenty years in prison or even probation. The state has ordered lab tests on the brownies as well as another jar they say contained 145 grams of hash oil. No word on if that was infused cooking oil or actual hash oil.
“That’s about the equivalent to two and a half of those sugar things you find at a restaurant when you sit down,” Holmes said at a press conference after the hearing. Holmes also suggests that charges could be dropped because he says police illegally entered Lavoro’s apartment. Cops were called out after a neighbor said they smelled smoke and it was making them ill. Cops say they were let in by Lavoro’s girlfriend, but Lavoro denies that and says he would never have let them in his place.
“They just bowed their way in because they thought because they smelled marijuana in the apartment, they thought they had permission right then based on the law, and they’re wrong about that,” Holmes said.
Lavoro’s case has gained a lot of support. Before the hearing, several activists submitted a petition to the district attorney with nearly a quarter-million signatures asking for reduced charges.