DELIVERY AVAILABLE Box and mattress VALLEY-WIDE Bunk-Bed-Frame with mattress $ $ 309 529 2pc sectional Choice of fabrics 4pc bedroom set 5 drawer chest $ 639 $ 439 T-$119 F-$139 Q-$169 K- $289 Twin Mattress w/ 6” Foam $ 7995 $ 139 CHESTs Starting from Snared from p 16 Bouhdida texted Elcock, telling him he had two strains of marijuana that he could sell to him: L.A. Confidential and Green Kush. That text exchange was entered as evidence in court. In it, Elcock texts that he wants a quarter ounce. “If it’s fire,” Elcock tells Bouhdida in a text. “tho dudes from the shop on the card will pick up too. Could be a come up u no.” “Fasho,” Bouhdida replies. “I shud $ 139 CALL FOR PRICING mon-THU: 9AM - 7PM fri: 9AM - 7PM sat: 9AM - 6PM sun: 10AM - 5PM 3330 w Van Buren St • Phoenix • 602-272-0034 (NE Corner of 35th Ave & Van Buren) *prices are subject 18 WESTSIDEFURNITURE.COM have it fam.” After this, Bouhdida again brings up something else he’d like to sell to the shop and Elcock turns the conversation back to marijuana. “Ok. Ok. Just hit me,” Bouhdida replied. “What’s poppin T,” Elcock writes the next day. “Ay lookin to come thru in like 30 min. 7-Eleven” “Yeah thats fine.” “Hit u when i pull up. Anything else on deck?” “Nah fam.” Then, for Bouhdida, some doubt creeps in. “U got a med card?” Bouhdida asks the cop. “Yeah shit might be expired tho. Ill look. Imbhere now tho.” “U aint the police is u? Lol.” “Hell naw,” Elcock writes back, after a moment. “Dam fam i thought we was pass that. I feel u tho.” “Lol my bad bruh i just gotta make sure i got a number,” Bouhdida writes, refer- ring again to Elcock’s medical marijuana card. The lab report on the small amounts of “plant material” that Bouhdida sold Elcock. Elcock gave him one, and with that, the first deal was done. There would be three more deals over the next two months. Elcock initiated the second, Bouhdida the last two, when he texted the cop with offers. Each time, Bouhdida sold Elcock a quarter ounce of pot. “I really didn’t see nothing wrong with what I was doing,” Bouhdida says now. “I’ve been in the situation where my card was expired and I wanted to get my medication.” The fact that he possessed the mari- juana legally was kept from the jury. “The fact that he had a medical mari- juana card has no bearing on whether or not he is allowed to sell marijuana under the law,” the prosecutor on the case, Vanessa Cuevas, convinced a Maricopa County Superior Court judge in a pretrial hearing. The Hustler “Hustle.” That was how Cuevas began her opening statement in Bouhdida’s trial, on November 20, 2017 — with that single word, letting it reverberate with the jury. At the time, Cuevas was a deputy county attorney. She had worked on serious cases, obtaining, in one instance, a 24-year prison sentence for one Phoenix pornographer who was convicted of running a brothel. Now, Bouhdida’s case was in her hands. “A hustle,” Cuevas continued, “can mean many different things to >> p 20 AUG 4TH–AUG 10TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
