By Richard Johnson
Hardened tabloid-TV veterans are
protesting the harsh treatment of a New Jersey wedding photographer caught
growing 17 pot plants.
Jon Peditto (the son of John Parsons
Peditto, former news director at Channel 5’s “10 O’Clock News” and co-creator
of “Hard Copy”) was sentenced Friday in Toms River, NJ, to eight years for drug
manufacturing and distribution.
Family members, who are trying to raise
$35,000 to hire a lawyer to appeal, say, “Jon is a gentle, compassionate man
with no prior criminal record. His only ‘crime’ is gardening without a
license.”
Burt Kearns, a former managing editor of
“Hard Copy” and executive producer of “A Current Affair,” told me, “If Jon
Peditto lived in Colorado or Oregon, he’d be getting an award from the Better
Business Bureau instead of facing what could be the rest of his life in
prison.”
Kearns blames New Jersey’s “outdated”
and “draconian” marijuana laws, and said Peditto is being punished because he
declined to cop a plea.
“He’s a brave man. He wouldn’t take a
deal. He took a stand against the law,” said Kearns, producer of the pro-pot
comedy “High There,” starring Wayne Darwen — also a veteran of “A Current
Affair,” “Hard Copy,” and “Inside Edition.”
Darwen said, “Jon’s a gardener, not El
Chapo, and El Chapo only got 22 years last time he was sentenced!”
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