The Marin District Attorney's Office filed the felony charges in August, despite harsh criticism from a federal judge last year that drug agents had mishandled the case.

Ager's attorney, Larry Lichter of San Francisco, said Wednesday that county officials may have revived the two-year-old case because they were annoyed with his client's federal plea bargain.

"I think they were upset," Lichter said.

However, Ager and Lichter argued that Deputy Gary Brock of the county's Major Crimes Task Force lied on the search-warrant affidavit. Brock said he had spotted the plants from a helicopter at an altitude of 1,000 feet.

Ager and his attornery claimed that the plants -- hidden in a translucent greenhouse -- could only have been sighted in an earlier, illegal search.

Before ruling on the matter, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker issued a scathing opinion, agreeing that the plants would have been hard to identify through a fiberglass roof.

The agreement, however, allowed state and county prosecutors to pursue the case if they wished. In March the Major Crimes Task Forces asked the Marin District Attorney's Office to file charges.

Lichter said he agreed to the plea bargain because he thought Marin prosecutors would take a hard look at Judge Walker's opinion, "and not just go shopping for a weaker judge. And they didn't get a weaker judge. They were unfortunate to get a judge [Lynn O'Malley Taylor] who's smart."

Judge Taylor ruled, however, that prosecutors had pursued the case with appropriate discretion.

Lichter said he is confident the judge will toss out the search warrant, although he is less certain Ager can duck the charge of stealing electricity, which he said will be "difficult to defend."

The attorney claimed that PG&E documents that might help Ager's case have been lost or destroyed.

Meanwhile, defendant Ager, who has spent two years fighting the case, told The Light this week that the ordeal has traumatized his family and nearly bankrupted him.

He declined to comment on the 1,179 pot plants. However, he did say, "Two wrongs don't make a right ... If I have done anything wrong, I have been more than punished for it."

Along with his bank accounts, agents seized Ager's Jaguar, and his huge hilltop house has been "liened beyond its value," the podiatrist said.

He added, "I have lost everything that I have. I have nothing financial left. The minimal amount I have gotten back has gone into lawyers' pockets."