Dear Mr McCormick. This is in reference to your 4/30/19 thcfarmer article about Neville's passing and start of Operation Green Merchant. However, your focus is on Ray Cogo, who you describe as a snitch who turned in Neville. The basis for your assertions are the 1990 and 1994 Prosecutors affidavits supporting indictment of Neville, Chas. Frink and others, and the affidavit of Mr. Cogo. Theres no question that Cogo cooperated under threat of prosecution in the 1990 indictment of Nevil. But the fact is that Neville was a prime DEA focus when OGM began in 1987, long before any information from Cogo. Agents had purchased multiple seed orders thru the High Times ads. There were several grow busts and the defendants admitted their seed source. Next, Neville was never brought to the US, his cases were dismissed and he died of natural causes. At the same time, you insinuate that Cogo's disclosures led to untold arrests and prosecutions of hydroponic store customers who had also purchased from seed bank. The affidavit of agent Pike indicates the DEA was well aware of all the seed bank orders, and had been monitoring their activities, alerted by Neville's high times interviews. And by 1994 the DEA was after high times, Hagar testified before a grand jury and a judge ruled it's ads werent protected by the first amendment. Apparently while possible, there's no direct link between whatever lists Cogo kept or turned over, and any prosecutions of any other person's outside of the 1990 indictment. Any grow stores customers were fair game independent of the lists.
So while you villify Cogo you lionize Neville, despite the fact that he was not a savory character, and was deeply involved with law enforcement himself, as to the heroin traffic in Holland.
Your opinion is one thing but you attempt to represent conclusion without real facts or evidence is mere speculation. And when you refer to Cogo as a snitch, it may well be considered libel, as well as economic disparagement to his lawfully owned brand of liquid plant nutrients. Please review what is available and consider your further clarification and retraction.
You assume that Cogo turned over the full lists of 11000 orders, which would be approximately 360 pages, not 8, but this is speculation. You say it's impossible to determine how many growers were busted by DEA stalking grow stores, yet guess that many can blame Cogo. Further you say, What is more alarming is that the DEA agents already had the addresses of the people who received the seeds during the time that Cogo was responsible for sending them. So despite your sadness for Nevil's passing, your blame to Cogo is unjustified in light of the DEA activities in monitoring the seed bank, hitimes, as well as grow shop customers.
Do you seriously think that the DEA wasnt all over every transmission and mailing from Nevil? That they weren't watching grow shops and their customers regardless of Cogo? And don't you ever wonder about the roles of Rosenthal Watson and hitimes in the whole outgrow the government scam to identify and lead the market?
Finally, Todd, you disparage Mr Cogo for his lawful acquisition of the original formulas from Frink. So Nevil the junkie bond skipping international criminal is a hero and Cogos a rat. What would you do when you're set up, busted and jailed, when your friends are in cahoots with your other friends to cut you out and take it all back? And threatened with prosecution and 30 years in prison? Are you such a goomba that you say omerta? Maybe you should contact Mr Cogo and find out what really happened. You are such a fine author; it may be better for all for you to write an honest chapter. And then you can post his pictures with his permission. Or are you so foolish as to not be potentially liable for your disparagement of his economic interests, as well as your false and misleading posts.
We can discuss this further if you wish. I am a pot lawyer and friend of Cogo for many years. His products are the finest available. Your sniping is unwarranted.
First and foremost, I am a journalist and I quoted directly from the affidavit. Your client is one of the worst examples of humankind that I have ever read about, and the lives he destroyed is something that I hope gives him nightmares.
Why didn't your client Cogo destroy the lists of address that Nevil told him to destroy?
Note: page 6, paragraph 11, and I quote Cogo: "Attachment 6 consist of true and accurate copies of a representative sample of the hundreds of lists I received from The Seed Bank... Although (Nevil) Schoenmakers told me to destroy these lists, I kept them as a record of my activities in support of his operation."
It seems pretty clear to anybody paying attention that he was obviously using those names and addresses as the ammunition that he used when he turned it all over in June 1989, and if you don't think that his turning over the addresses to some 11,000 seed sales, was fuel to Operation Green Merchant, which actually launched October 26, 1989, and not in 1987, as you state, you are delusional.
I don't care how you're trying to pick apart the details and put them together to fit your narrative, the indictments, as well as the affidavit from your client, is public record, and the record speaks loud and clear.
I depicted your client accurately with direct quotes from the information contained within the two indictments as well as the January 1994, affidavit that was literally in his own words. I find it funny that people like him could not have imagined that something called the "internet" was going to come along and expose what he did for the world to see.
I have no interest in speaking to your client, as his affidavit speaks clearly. I have no interest in listening to somebody, who is clearly a police informant, tell stories to get themselves out of trouble - again. I don't need to contact Cogo to find out what really happened, I have the sworn affidavit that he gave to the DEA, or are you now saying that he lied to the DEA? Does Cogo have another story now? Lying on a sworn affidavit is a felony, so if you're really a lawyer, I would be careful about what you post on the internet in regards to him having a different story from the one that he gave the DEA through his sworn affidavit in 1994.
I'm positive that everything contained in the SWORN affidavit by Cogo is accurate, or the DEA would not have let him stay out of prison, now would they?
Your client, and the attorneys who represent him, are nothing but vile scum IMHO.
Attached affidavit with the whole story in your clients own words for all the world to see.
And do note, that Cogo actually states in the affidavit that the lists attached are just a partial list of what he turned over of the addresses to the people to purchase the seeds. He turned over 360 pages of addresses you say? That is absolutely heartbreaking.
My suggestion to you, stop lying for your client.
What we would all like to know is, did your client Cogo, receive compensation from the forfeitures of the thousands of people he turned in to the DEA in June 1989?
Hmmmmm?
FYI:
During a two-week period beginning on October 26, 1989, the DEA raided gardening centers and private homes in 46 states. The results of that first phase of Green Merchant -- released on November 9, 1989 -- were:
o 377 arrests of private citizens for marijuana cultivation;
o 42,677 marijuana plants seized (the Justice Department counts unsprouted seeds in soil as marijuana plants);
o 875 pounds of packaged marijuana seized;
o 5 pounds of mushrooms seized;
o 280 indoor grow-sites seized;
o 19 stores and warehouses seized;
o 11 store owners arrested (8 store owners had their businesses seized without being charged of any criminal activity);
o $7,318,000 in total assets seized.
o 19 stores closed down: 7 stores forfeited, 11 currently under forfeiture litigation, 1 store no explanation;
o 16 store owners arrested;
o $9,208,928 in total assets seized.
(No new statistics on either quantities of packaged marijuana or other illegal substances seized.)
The Operation was far from over. During the past 18 months the DEA has continued its Green Merchant investigations. The most recent figures -- released by the Justice Department on February 1, 1991 -- are:
o 443 arrests of private citizens for marijuana cultivation;
o 50,794 marijuana plants seized (including unsprouted seeds in soil);
o 358 indoor grow-sites seized;
