Officer’s girlfriend admits growing pot

Athena Sui Lee said in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that when she told her boyfriend, Hono­lulu police officer Michael Steven Chu, that she wanted to use marijuana to treat her health ailments, "he want do legal way; that’s why we have medical (marijuana) card."

Lee pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to cultivate 48 marijuana plants and conspiring to possess to distribute 49 pounds of processed marijuana in connection with indoor growing operations in her Kapiolani Boulevard apartment and Chu’s Mililani home. She faces up to five years in prison at sentencing in November.

Chu is scheduled to plead guilty Thursday.

Lee said she and Chu have been growing marijuana ever since her husband left her.

Lee’s husband, Ping Hong Lee, has been in federal custody since his arrest on July 21, 2011, for possessing with intent to distribute about 7,000 tablets of the synthetic drug known as Ecstasy. He pleaded guilty and is serving an 87-month prison sentence. Athena Lee filed for divorce Aug. 2.

She said she went to see a doctor because she couldn’t sleep or eat and had stomachaches. She said her father, who has cancer, suggested she try marijuana.

Lee admitted that she arranged for the shipment of 14 pounds of marijuana to Chu’s former residence, an apartment on Young Street, in July 2011 and the shipment of eight juvenile or starter plants and 30.9 pounds of processed marijuana to her Kapiolani Boulevard apartment from California in April.

She said that at the time, she couldn’t understand why it was illegal to ship it to Hawaii if it was legal to purchase the marijuana in California.

Honolulu police said after they intercepted the FedEx parcel with the eight plants, they went to Lee’s apartment and found 24 plants growing inside. Chu and Lee showed up at the apartment during the search carrying fertilizer and plant nutrients. Chu also had a pound of processed marijuana in his vehicle, police said.

Federal prosecutor Thomas Mueh­leck said Lee admitted that the $12,000 in cash that she was carrying when she showed up at the apartment was drug sale proceeds.

Police said they found 13 marijuana plants in the master bedroom of a home in Mililani after Chu told them he also had a medical marijuana card. The Mililani home is the address Chu had listed on his application for his card.