Lepp's Lawyer Decries Raid

By John Lindblom

UPPER LAKE -- Eddy Lepp's attorney, Dennis Roberts, believes that a raid on Lepp's property and his arrest early Wednesday morning could have been a retaliatory action by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

"My reaction is that the arrest is vindictive, vindictive, vindictive," said Roberts, who pointed out a federal judge in San Francisco on Feb. 7 ordered the DEA to return personal property taken from Lepp's residence along with marijuana in a raid conducted last August.

Lepp and Roberts say federal chief justice Marilyn Hall Patel, acting on a written motion by Roberts, had ordered federal government officials to appear in court to explain why they had not returned what Lepp described as "non exculpatory property."

According to Roberts' document, the property included two pairs of Lepp's slippers.

"There was also a picture of me and (wife) Linda that didn't prove (expletive)," Lepp said earlier this week. The judge said, Well, give all that back,' and if they don't return it (today), to be in court (on Tuesday, Feb. 22) to explain why they didn't."

Roberts said some of the material taken by the DEA were written records that will be critical to Lepp's defense when he goes on trial in federal court.

Eddy and his wife, Linda Senti, have reportedly been allowed to continue to smoke marijuana for the cancer from which both of them suffer.

But Roberts acknowledged that if more marijuana was taken from their property than what Lepp and those in his immediate family need, "it could be tough to defend."