DENVER (AP) — A suburban Denver pot grower who tried to set up a federal-state showdown on medical marijuana agreed to a five-year prison term and was handcuffed in court and led away after pleading guilty.
Thirty-seven-year-old Christopher Bartkowicz (BART’-kuh-wits) pleaded guilty Thursday to three drug charges stemming from his basement pot-growing business. Bartkowicz agreed to a five-year sentence with no possibility of parole after he tried and failed to use Colorado’s medical marijuana law in his defense.
Federal drug agents seized hundreds of marijuana plants from Bartkowicz’s Highlands Ranch home in February after he showed off his growing business to a TV news station.
Bartkowicz will be jailed until he is formally sentenced in January.
