Posted on: Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Marijuana trial begins for ex-tennis coach

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

A former, part-time tennis coach at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo fled when rangers caught him visiting a marijuana patch March 15 in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, and he later was found with potential marijuana cultivation materials, a federal prosecutor said yesterday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Kawahara said several water jugs found in defendant Laron Kortgaard's car were identical to those photographed by federal park rangers who kept an area of the national park under surveillance after finding a marijuana patch on Dec. 26, 2001.

Kortgaard was indicted on federal charges of manufacturing marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it. His federal court trial began yesterday.

The prosecution contends that Kortgaard planted and was maintaining three marijuana clusters just inside the national park boundary when federal park rangers caught him at the marijuana growing site March 15.

But Michael Weight, a deputy federal public defender, told the jury in his opening statement that Kortgaard kept water jugs in his car because he and many of his Maunaloa Estates neighbors frequently drove to Kurtistown to obtain municipal drinking water.

While the prosecution intends to show three snippets of video surveillance footage that it says shows Kortgaard tending to the plants in the marijuana patch, Weight said Kortgaard is recognizable in only one of the snippets.

And that portion of the tape simply shows him looking at the plants and then walking away after 20 to 25 seconds, Weight said.

He said Kortgaard was hiking in a drier area of the park and left after he was frightened by two park rangers wearing camouflage uniforms and armed with handguns who ordered him to stop.

Weight said none of the potting soil samples collected from Kortgaard's truck and sent to an FBI crime lab matched samples taken from the marijuana patch.