Ed Forchion: The Hollywood connection - Philly.com

Ed Forchion: The Hollywood connection - Philly.comd Forchion: The Hollywood connection
August 22, 2011|BY JASON NARK, narkj@phillynews.com 215-854-5916



WHEN COLLEEN Begley was arrested with a box of weed in the trunk of her Jeep in South Jersey, authorities checked her social-networking sites and found a familiar friend: Ed "NJ Weedman" Forchion.

The South Jersey native and frequent political candidate now dispenses marijuana at his Liberty Bell Temple, in Hollywood. He first met Begley when she was in high school and he was smoking a joint at the actual Liberty Bell.

"I'm proud of her," Forchion said recently from California. "She wanted to be a freedom fighter and battle, and she has the means to do it."

The cops didn't have to do as much digging to figure out that Russell Forchion, also arrested in the bust for allegedly being a lookout, knew the NJ Weedman, too. Russell, a Clementon, Camden County native, is charged with conspiracy in the Feb. 11 incident in Burlington Township and, according to police documents, authorities definitely had hunches about where the marijuana came from.

"We then started to speculate that [Ed Forchion], or one of his representatives, may have shipped the marijuana to his brother Russell Forchion," a detective wrote in his report. The two brothers had been arrested together in 1997 in Bellmawr, Camden County, for shipping 40 pounds through Federal Express.

In the recent case, authorities tracked down UPS shipping documents and found that the shipment to Burlington was sent from a UPS center just two blocks from Ed Forchion's Rastafarian temple in Hollywood. They obtained video from the UPS store, found evidence of phone calls and texts, and even contacted the Los Angeles Police Department's Narcotics unit, but, six months later, Ed Forchion has not been charged in the incident.

Begley declined to say where the recent pot shipment came from, and Ed Forchion said that he didn't know, although he would like to know who the confidential informant was who tipped police.

Russell Forchion has filed a motion to sever his case from Begley's and co-defendant John Claudy's. His attorney, Reza Mazaheri, said that there is no evidence against his client, no reason to even pull him over, particularly at gunpoint.

"I couldn't find a single thing, except that he's a black man driving a car in an area he doesn't live and that he shares a last name with a well-known marijuana activist," Mazaheri said.

Officers claimed that they noticed Russell Forchion traveling up and down the street in Burlington on Feb. 11 and became suspicious when he parked in a nearby park.

Ed Forchion felt that his brother was simply being profiled.

"My brother was guilty of being a black man driving through a neighborhood," Ed Forchion said.

Last year, Ed Forchion was arrested in Mount Holly with one pound of marijuana while back home to see his kids, and is fighting his case, flying back to New Jersey on a regular basis for court appearances. He has filed a constitutional challenge challenging New Jersey's criminal code as it pertains to marijuana.

"I have no doubt I'm going to win," he said. "The law is wrong."