Expensive homes used to grow dope, U.S. attorney says

Associated Press / SFGate

[RCW2001]

Friday, June 28, 2002
©2002 Associated Press

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/28/state2051EDT7784.DTL

(06-28) 17:51 PDT SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Bank tellers smelled marijuana on the weekly cash deposits from an interior design business. They told authorities, who cracked a huge indoor pot-growing operation.

The marijuana was being grown in homes ranging in value from $136,000 to more than $343,000, including one on Spokane's scenic High Drive.

Five people in their 50s and 60s were arrested on federal drug charges. The five made initial appearances Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno on charges of manufacture of more than 100 marijuana plants.

"This was literally right under everybody's nose," U.S. Attorney James McDevitt said Thursday. "It represents a sizable and sophisticated drug operation. The potential for the loss of assets (by the defendants) is pretty great."

Federal prosecutors moved to seize seven homes in Spokane and an eighth residence in Lewiston, Idaho, with a combined market value exceeding $2 million.

Agents also searched a Moses Lake farm where investigators say they believe the marijuana grown in Spokane was processed and distributed.

More than 600 mature marijuana plants were found this week in searches of the Spokane homes.

The investigation involved the secret placement of time-lapse cameras in exclusive South Hill neighborhoods to allow investigators to watch unoccupied homes where marijuana plants were grown under high-intensity lighting in basements.

Investigators also used surveillance aircraft and grand jury subpoenas to obtain bank records, tax returns and electric bills, court documents showed.

The documents disclose that the case broke in February when an anonymous caller told Spokane police Detective Mark Burbridge about cash deposits that smelled like marijuana.

Burbridge's tip was forwarded to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force.

The cash was traced to a Spokane interior design business, EJ Designs, and subsequently to the eight homes and Moses Lake ranch, court records said.

Arrested were Francis Jenny, 64, and his wife, Kathleen C. Jenny, 58, of Spokane, who owned the Moses Lake ranch and several of the houses. Their IRS tax records list their occupations as farmer and homemaker. Also arrested were Virginia "Ginger" L. Erickson, 59, of Spokane, and Gregory A. Montgomery, 54, who lived in the Lewiston, Idaho, house owned by Kathleen Jenny.

Erickson's husband, Jack N. Erickson, 66, an insurance salesman, was arrested late Thursday as he returned from a European vacation.

The business, EJ Designs, was opened in 1994 by Ginger Erickson and Kathleen Jenny, the documents said.

Investigators seized more than $80,000 in cash and a number of expensive vehicles. Court documents said another company, used as a front for the operation, may have $945,000 in cash or assets.

[RCW2001]

an anonymous caller told Spokane police Detective Mark Burbridge about cash deposits that smelled like marijuana.

ooooook!

[alpowolf]

With the country supposedly at war, why are the authorities wasting time and resources on this?

Federal prosecutors moved to seize seven homes in Spokane and an eighth residence in Lewiston, Idaho, with a combined market value exceeding $2 million

I think I "smell" the reason.

[thepitts]

Expensive homes used to grow dope, U.S. attorney says

Sounds like probable cause to me.

[billybudd]

Of course they're growing marijuana - they need the profits to pay off those huge mortgages!

[danzaroni]

...including one on Spokane's scenic High Drive.

Ha ha ha. That's a good one.

[BluesDuke]

With the country supposedly at war, why are the authorities wasting time and resources on this?

Because something stinks in the authorities' offices?

[Kermit]

It's best to grow your pot on public land, then they can't confiscate yours (while sipping a fine Burgundy).

[Hugin]

The marijuana was being grown in homes ranging in value from $136,000 to more than $343,000, including one on Spokane's scenic High Drive.

I live in the SF Bay Area, and around here $343,000 might get you a fixer-up starter home. Maybe.

[Ipse Dixit]

The marijuana was being grown in homes ranging in value from $136,000 to more than $343,000, including one on Spokane's scenic High Drive.

So what. Where I live, in Southern California, that price range pretty much covers the ghetto and public housing areas. No big surprise in that.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Investigators seized more than $80,000 in cash and a number of expensive vehicles.

Meanwhile, Worldcom defrauds the public for $3,800,000,000 Xerox misrepresents $6,000,000,000 in earnings and Enron...

Why aren't the 'white' collar criminals going to jail and receiving their dance cards?

[Reeses]

Their IRS tax records list their occupations as farmer

Indoor farmer.

[Big Bunyip]

The bank, once its identified, needs a big fat boycott.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

bump

[ClearasaBell]

meanwhile mild mannered clark kent observes all this b.s.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Good thing the Scales of Justice are Balanced. Otherwise our whole legal system might be viewed as suspect.

[Objective Reality]

the growers here were pretty dumb to have thought they could grow 600 plants in their homes and not have the stench of maturing buds permeating every single porous object in the area. Could've been totally alleviated by keeping a stupid Sharper Image air cleaner in the closet with their cash. Probably had the giant lights that show up as big, round, hot discs from any FLIR camera flying overhead, and if not the smell, that would have busted them eventually. Then there's the power consumption for all those lights - another red flag.

Anyone who grows indoors using anything other than a Phototron, and for anything other than personal consumption, is a fool, and will be busted. The govt doesn't give a damn if you smoke it, only if you sell it.

[RonF]

"Meanwhile, Worldcom defrauds the public for $3,800,000,000 Xerox misrepresents $6,000,000,000 in earnings and Enron..."

No $hit.

Meanwhile, interesting trend in Illinois. The new U.S. Attorney isn't going in for busting minority aldermen for taking $3500 to allow illegal dumping anymore. Instead, he's busting the entire Illinois State Reflublican power structure, and is thisfar from busting the Governor himself. Seems the new guy shares the thinking you're talking about. And he was appointed by a Reflublican Senator.

Oh, yeah. I live in the Chicago suburbs. The lower end of that price range might, possibly, get you a 1 or 2 bedroom fixer upper, in a lower than average school district (what school district you're in can double or halve the worth of your house out here). The high end would get you a decent home where I am, or east of me. North of me or west of me, you'd get a 2 bedroom townhouse, or a resonably middle class home.

[philman_36]

Bank tellers smelled marijuana on the weekly cash deposits from an interior design business.
Someone forgot to "launder their money" at

the washateria.

[eno_]

Yup, I just sold a gut rehab plus structural work pile in in teh Chicago suburbs for something north of half a mil. I'll but ten buildings in other places with that money.

[Morgan's Raider]

Their IRS tax records list their occupations as farmer and homemaker.

Hmmmmmmm, and on another FR article this morning it's reported that America's most celebrated farmer, that humble tiller of the soil Algore, has bought a 2.3 million dollar mansion in the most affluent community in Tennessee.

And then there's Suzy Homemaker Tipper, happily running the vacuum while doing the Haldol Shuffle to the tune of "We're In the Money".