A longtime marijuana user from New York who moved to Eugene a year ago with hopes of working in Oregon’s legal-weed market will serve prison time in a federal pot case prosecuted in Connecticut.
John G. Koukouras, 40, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., to two years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty in November to a charge of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.
Authorities served a search warrant at the New York home in July and seized about 140 marijuana plants, along with equipment used in the commercial pot operation, officials said.
Koukouras, meanwhile, was arrested in September at a home in the 700 block of Brookside Drive in Eugene. Investigators seized 50 marijuana plants from that house, along with what prosecutors described in court filings as a blueprint for a pot business, and a “glitzy video” advertising a venture called “East Coast Marijuana Growers.”
Koukouras, a New York native, reportedly moved to Oregon in February 2017 but still made frequent visits to his home state in the months before his arrest, according to court records.
He told investigators in September that he had set up the grow house in New York, “was in Oregon for the marijuana business and that he was moving from the East Coast since marijuana was not legal there,” according to a prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum in the case.
Under federal law, marijuana remains illegal for medical and recreational purposes.
A lawyer for Koukouras said in court filings that his client had passed Oregon’s recreational marijuana worker permit test last year, and also had applied to participate in the state’s medical marijuana program.
A spokesman for the medical marijuana program said Wednesday that Koukouras isn’t listed in its dispensary or processor registration database, and that information kept by the state regarding medical pot cardholders is confidential. A spokesman for Oregon’s recreational marijuana program did not respond to a request for any information it may have on Koukouras.
According to his attorney, Koukouras was a daily marijuana user from the age of 19 until his arrest. He has three prior misdemeanor convictions for marijuana possession in New York and New Jersey. Koukouras has no known criminal record in Oregon.
“As he told the federal agents who arrested him, he moved to Eugene, Ore., to use his experience to go legal,” defense attorney Richard Willstatter wrote in a sentencing memo.
Two other men arrested in the federal case have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Willstatter pointed out that nine U.S. states allow adults to legally possess and use marijuana, and said legalization proposals are being considered in other states including both Connecticut and New York.
credit:registerguard.com