West Michigan Marijuana Grow Brings Prison For Florida Man

[bobandtorey]

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A Florida man who set up a marijuana grow operation in an Allegan County residence has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Ernest Arias, who prosecutors say financed and built a grow operation in a house on M-40, was sentenced Thursday, June 2, by U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell.

The judge ordered Arias to serve three years on supervised release after the prison term ends and to pay $10,000 in fines.

Arias was also linked to a Van Buren County operation, court records said.

 

They were convicted of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.

Arias created the grow operation "through his own labor and by his financing," Assistant U.S. Attorney Heath Lynch wrote in court documents.

Arias was not there on a day-to-day basis but returned there to cultivate plants and prepare the drugs for sale, the prosecutor said.

Police seized 227 marijuana plants and 40 pounds of marijuana in a 2015 raid at the house on M-40.

A special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said that West Michigan Enforcement Team, a multi-agency drug team, received a tip about the grow operation in April 2015.

Police detected a strong odor of marijuana coming from the house. Utility records showed "abnormally high" electrical use, police said in court records.

Authorities say the grow operation and another in Van Buren County began as early as 2011, records showed.

 

 

A co-defendant, Josue Salazar, was earlier sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison and three years on supervised release.

 

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/06/west_michigan_marijuana_grow_b.html