[420 Girl]

A Sioux Falls man arrested in February for growing more than a dozen marijuana plants was sentenced Thursday.

Sioux Falls police officers removed 17 marijuana plants, 14 seedlings, sophisticated equipment to grow those plants, and a long list of other drug paraphernalia from Johnny Pritchard's home back in February. But Thursday, Judge Brad Zell granted the Sioux Falls man a second chance.

Fifty-year-old Johnny Pritchard arrived at the Minnehaha County Courthouse fifteen minutes before his scheduled sentencing. Minutes later, the judge handed down a sentence of 89 days house arrest, and 18 months of supervised probation.

Deputy State’s Attorney Donald Hanson says, "We would have liked to have seen a jail sentence and we asked for a jail sentence. I think the judge was looking at Pritchard's age and lack of criminal activity in the past. Obviously those are things the court can and should take into consideration."

The judge also considered what the arrest had cost Pritchard's family. Three weeks after the arrest, Pritchard's wife, Kim, left her job as postmaster. At the time, the family said it has nothing to do with the arrest, but it was mentioned several times during today's sentencing.

"He had a lot more to lose than most of the people we see in court for this kind of activity,” says Hanson. “And that made it a little bit surprising that he would involve himself in this."

In the courtroom, Pritchard told the judge he was very sorry for the decisions he had made, and he would never do anything like it again.

Pritchard's lawyer said that he had only been smoking marijuana for six months and turned to the drug after a May 2007 surgery. After that, Pritchard said the prescribed pain killer wasn't strong enough which is why he began growing marijuana for his own use.

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