SANTA CRUZ — A fraction of the two dozen men implicated in a statewide cannabis dispensary crime ring concentrated in Santa Cruz County pleaded guilty last week to charges.
The state Attorney General’s Office-dubbed case “Operation Sticky Fingers,” announced at an August press conference in Live Oak, charged 24 people over nine counties during nine months. The 15 break-ins charged involved mob-style after-hours thefts of about 1,000 pounds of marijuana plants and other cannabis retail items valued at more than $1 million, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. Details of the case began emerging in mid-August, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan package of 10 bills establishing tougher punishments for smash-and-grab robberies and property crimes.
Among the 18 co-defendants appearing Thursday morning in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, four were convicted of organized retail theft and sentenced to 90 days in jail and a two-year probation. This week’s series of back-to-back plea changes came as a part of a deal brokered by Deputy Attorney General Bennie Mackey, who is handling the conjoined cases spanning Santa Cruz, Solano, Kern, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Merced, Fresno, Sonoma and San Diego counties, between October 2023 and July. Six of the break-ins listed in criminal complaints occurred in Santa Cruz County.
