Pot Brownies Case Moved to November

A motion to suppress evidence was filed in early July, but it appears Jacob Lavoro will have to wait a few more months for adjudication. In a Williamson County court Thursday, Judge Stacey Mathews set the next hearing for the 19-year-old made famous for baking pot brownies to mid-November.

Lavoro, indicted on a charge of second-degree possession of a controlled substance – facing a potential sentence of two to 20 years – is due back in court on Nov. 12 for a pre-trial hearing, with a trial (if necessary) to commence three weeks later, on Dec. 1. Mathews said Thursday afternoon that she would hear his pending motion to suppress evidence during the pre-trial hearing in two months.

Outside the courtroom Thursday, Lavoro’s attorney Jack Holmes told the Chronicle he was disappointed at the outcome of the day’s proceedings, explaining that he’d filed the motion to dismiss well in advance and was hoping for more progress from the court. In late July, he had explained that he believes his client, arrested in a Round Rock apartment in April after neighbors called the police to complain about the smell of marijuana coming from the apartment where he was staying, shouldn’t be sentenced at all. Instead, said the attorney, the case should be dismissed outright. Police didn’t have a warrant to enter the premises, Holmes said, and thus no admissible evidence.

“They entered the apartment illegally,” he said in late July. “Case law says you cannot enter the house without a search warrant unless there’s an adequate probable cause, and there wasn’t.”

Nevertheless, the case has turned somewhat in Lavoro’s favor. Originally on the hook for first-degree possession of a controlled substance (in this case, a charge of more than 400 grams of THC, or the full weight of the brownies that the pot went into) and the potential of a 99-year prison sentence if convicted, he learned early last week that a grand jury decided to lessen the charges to intent to deliver between one and four grams of THC – but tacked on an additional charge of possession of marijuana – more than four ounces and under five pounds.

The first charge carries a potential prison sentence of two to 20 years. The second’s punishable by between 180 days and 2 years.