Lawyer says family badgered by agent to 'sell' eggs
December 26, 2008
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
A state agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture pressured a family whose members run a food cooperative for friends and neighbors to "sell" him a dozen eggs, sparking accusations of entrapment from a lawyer defending the family.
The case brought by state and local authorities against a co-op run by John and Jacqueline Stowers in LaGrange, Ohio, came to a head on Dec. 1 when police officers used SWAT-style tactics to burst into the home, hold family members including children at gunpoint and confiscate the family's personal food supply.
Two organizations, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Buckeye Institute's legal arm, the Center for Constitutional Law, are working to defend the family.
Jacqueline and John Stowers
In an audio podcast posted online, Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute said the family has run the Manna Storehouse, focusing mainly on organic supplies, for several years near Cleveland.
The confrontation began developing several years ago when local health officials demanded the family hold a retail food license in order to run their co-op. Thompson said the family wrote a letter questioning that requirement and asking for evidence that would suggest they were operating a food store and how their private co-op was similar to a WalMart.
The Stowers family members simply "take orders from (co-op) members … then divide up the food," Thompson explained.
"The health inspector didn't like the tone of the letter," Thompson said, and the result was that law enforcement officials planned, staged and carried out the Dec. 1 SWAT-style raid on the family's home.
Thompson said he discussed the developments of the case with the health inspector personally.
"He didn't think the tone of that letter was appropriate," Thompson said. " I've seen the letter. There's not anything there that's belligerent."
"Government officials have egos as well. The problem is when government officials have egos, they use the power of government against us," he said.
Thompson explained the genesis of the raid was a series of visits to the family by an undercover agent for the state agriculture agency.
"He showed up (at the Stowers' residence) unannounced one day," Thompson explained, and "pretended" to be interested in purchasing food.
The family explained the co-op was private and they couldn't provide service to the stranger.
The agent then returned another day, stayed for two hours, and explained how he thought his sick mother would be helped by eggs from range-fed chickens to which the Stowers had access.
The family responded that they didn't sell food and couldn't help. When he refused to leave, the family gave him a dozen eggs to hasten his departure, Thompson explained.
Despite protests from the family, the agent left some money on a counter and departed.
On the basis of that transaction, the Stowers were accused of engaging in the retail sale of food, Thompson said.
"You hear people scream entrapment," he said. "But in this instance…"
He said the state agency came from "nowhere" and then worked to get the family involved "in something that might require a license."
Even that remained in dispute, because of a long list of exceptions in the state law, some of which may apply in this case, he said.
The organizations have filed a complaint on behalf of the family naming the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Lorain County General Health District and the state's attorney general as defendants. A spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture told WND today she was unable to comment, and officials with the local health agency did not answer WND calls to three different office numbers.
A prosecutor assigned to the case previously declined to respond to WND's request for a comment.
Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the case was government "overreaching" and was designed more to intimidate and "frighten people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves."
"This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice," said Gary Cox, general counsel for the FTCLDF. "The purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong."
In a video posted both on YouTube and on the Buckeye Institute's website, the couple explained how they just wanted to provide a resource for both farmers and consumers.
