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Appeals court overturns convictions in local drug case
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Monday, 23 April 2007
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By Evelyn Puffer
Contributing writer
The Minnesota Appeals Court last week over-turned two of three convictions of a rural Isanti man in a 2003 alleged drug manufacturing case for which he is serving 81 months in prison.
Michael Eugene Tabaka, 43, was arrested in April 2003 after Isanti County sheriff’s deputies, responding to a complaint of a strong odor from the property, discovered what they believed to be equipment commonly used in drug manufacturing in a pole barn following a search to which Tabaka had consented.
Search of the property continued following Tabaka’s arrest resulting in discovery of a radio tuned to the sheriff’s frequency and a TV set connected to a closed-circuit camera focused on the driveway leading to the pole barn. Inside a closed cabinet, investigators found 28.5 grams of methamphetamine, more items commonly used in meth manufacturing and a complete portable meth lab with an HCL generator.
But what they didn’t discover or prove, ruled the Appeals Court, was sufficient evidence that Michael Eugene Tabaka either aided and abetted the manufacturing of a controlled substance or conspired to do so.
It was Tabaka’s contention that while the state’s evidence may support a finding that he had acquiesced in the manufacture of methamphetamines in his pole barn it was insufficent to establish that he aided and abetted that manufacture.
He had been convicted of those two charges as well as one count of first degree possession of a controlled substance for being in possession of .06 grams of meth and a digital scale.
The Appeals Court ordered that Tabaka be returned to 10th District Court for re-sentencing on the first degree possession of a controlled substance charge.
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