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SANTA ROSA — Two men arrested for growing 899 pot plants were acquitted Wednesday on charges of cultivating and possessing marijuana. 

A Sonoma County jury found Kenneth E. Hayes and Michael S. Foley innocent after a day of deliberations. 

The two men had claimed they were growing the plants for the 1,200-members of a San Francisco medical marijuana club called CHAMP – Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems. Hayes ran the club. 

The pair was arrested in May 1999 after a county narcotics task force found the plants in a greenhouse near Petaluma. 

Prosecutors said Hayes and Foley grew the marijuana for profit and were not the patients’ primary caregivers.  

That definition was at issue because state law, approved by voters as Proposition 215, allows marijuana possession with a physician’s approval for medical patients and their caregivers. 

“Our contention was that you can’t be a caregiver under the definition of the statute to that many people,” said Sonoma County District Attorney Mike Mullins. “The jury felt otherwise.”