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 flatline
psycho + logical
Registered: 08/02/03
Posts: 120
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 Men charged in major pot ring [WI]
#7996925 - 02/08/08 04:16 PM (6 months, 15 days ago) |
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http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=716109
By JOHN DIEDRICH
jdiedrich@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 8, 2008
Federal agents have broken a drug ring they say grew more than 2,000 pounds of high-grade marijuana in Northern California and sold it in Milwaukee, Chicago and elsewhere, according to federal court documents unsealed Friday.
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The dealers were pushing at least 50 pounds of the potent weed a week from an indoor skateboard park in Butler, the documents say.
When agents busted the grow operations north of San Francisco, they found prescriptions for medicinal marijuana posted outside, a prosecutor said. California law allows people under a doctor's care to grow and use marijuana for medical reasons, but federal agents don't honor that law and in this case think it was bogus, he said.
Thirty-one people have been indicted including 12 from Milwaukee. If convicted, they all face from a minimum of 10 years and at most, life in prison. Agents executed at least 16 search warrants in five states in recent weeks, yielding cash, drugs and guns.
Prosecutors are going after homes, cars, jewelry, a plane, a boat and a Milwaukee man's $862,123 trust fund, according to documents.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Sanders said the case stands out because of the quality of the marijuana and the profit margin. The Milwaukee dealers were making at least $1,000 a pound and sometimes much more, Sanders said.
"The amounts of money they were making were just tremendous," he said. "This is not the typical Mexican ditch weed. This is high-grade, highly sought-after northern California hydro."
The sprawling case, investigated by the state Department of Justice, FBI and others, started with a tip in Milwaukee in spring 2007 that focused on drug dealing by David LeBlanc, who along with several other defendants grew up in Shorewood, documents say.
LeBlanc, 29, was buying huge volumes of marijuana from Oskar Sheldon, 27, was grew up in Washington state and lived on a boat in Milwaukee last summer, it says. Sheldon was caught by police in Colorado with large volume of cash in 2000 and again in 2004, likely proceeds from marijuana smuggled from inside hockey bags from Canada into the U.S. aboard boats, on snowmobiles and in cars with secret compartments, it says. Documents don't say whether Sheldon was prosecuted.
LeBlanc and others from Milwaukee met Sheldon when they lived near Olympia, Wash., in the late 1990s, Sanders said. LeBlanc and the others returned to Milwaukee.
Besides selling to LeBlanc, Sheldon also supplied dealers in Chicago, documents say. Couriers, generally women, would bring the marijuana from the West Coast in rental cars and money orders were mailed back, the search warrants say. LeBlanc and other dealers at one point kidnapped one of the investigators' informants, who owed them money, and threatened to kill him, they say. He was not hurt and none of the charges allege violence.
Investigators received a court-ordered wire tap of LeBlanc in August and began monitoring his conversations, text messages and emails sent via his phone. They tapped Sheldon's phone a month later and secretly put a Global Positioning System tracker on his truck, the documents say.
Agents saw Sheldon, LeBlanc and others transporting what appeared to be as much as 50 pounds of marijuana at a time in hockey bags, they say. They also learned that the men had purchased a $60,000 John Deere tractor for farming the marijuana in California, they say.
Authorities traced the drug sales to Cream City Skatepark in Butler, a warehouse with skateboard obstacles. Butler police reported in 2005 that 50 pounds a week were being sold from the business a week. At least one person was charged but the documents say the drug dealing continued.
Agents watched through the fall, when the outdoor crop was harvested in California and brought into Milwaukee and Chicago. Then late last month, they swept down on the grow operations in California and raided several homes in Milwaukee, most in the Riverwest area.
Authorities were still looking for eight of the defendants as of Friday afternoon.
Besides LeBlanc, the local defendants in custody include Colleen A. McGarry, 25, of Milwaukee; Ryan C. Minahan, 29, of Milwaukee; Benjamin C. Janik, 27, of Milwaukee; Brian J. McGuinnis, 34, of Milwaukee; Jeremy Hoch, 29, of Milwaukee; Jonathan Rockafellow, no age, of Milwaukee; Patrick Beaty, no age, of Milwaukee; Samuel Sumner, 28, of Milwaukee; Thomas P. Baker, 33, of West Allis; Emmanual J. Merritt, 28, of Milwaukee;
Out-of-state defendants in custody include Sheldon; Patrick J. O'Brien, 28, of Garberville, Calif.; Peter K. Lofgren, 27, of Seattle, Wash.; Aimee S. Martinez, 25, of Santa Rosa, Calif.; Ricardo Alvarez-Morales, 30, of Booneville, Calif.; Omar Morales-Ortiz, 29, of Booneville, Calif.; Celeste F. Pinney, 37, of Garberville, Calif.; Chris A. Lambrou, 28, of Chicago; Robert A. Huff, 37, of Chicago; Justin G. Wells, 30, of Olympia, Wash; Johnny J. Morton, 36, of Olympia, Wash.; and Andrea J. McDevitt, 38, of Olympia, Wash.
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 LoWgRoW
Strange
 
Registered: 09/22/07
Posts: 251
Loc: NYCHITY
Last seen: 3 days, 9 hours
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Re: Men charged in major pot ring [WI] [Re: flatline]
#7997511 - 02/08/08 06:39 PM (6 months, 15 days ago) |
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life in the pen. That sucks.
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Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
Your fortune for today...
Avoid negative people.
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learningtofly
Stranger
Registered: 05/21/07
Posts: 2,274
Last seen: 1 day, 7 hours
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Re: Men charged in major pot ring [WI] [Re: LoWgRoW]
#7997516 - 02/08/08 06:40 PM (6 months, 15 days ago) |
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"This is not the typical Mexican ditch weed. This is high-grade, highly sought-after northern California hydro."
lol/
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GnuBobo said:
You're a stupid hippie. That's my point.
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n20forme
MUSHROOM PIMP
Registered: 01/29/06
Posts: 102
Loc: USA
Last seen: 2 months, 5 hours
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Re: Men charged in major pot ring [WI] [Re: learningtofly]
#7999106 - 02/09/08 04:06 AM (6 months, 15 days ago) |
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"This is not the typical Mexican ditch weed. This is high-grade, highly sought-after northern California hydro."
"They also learned that the men had purchased a $60,000 John Deere tractor for farming the marijuana in California, they say."
Last time I checked you did not need a tractor for an indoor hydro setup lol
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"In the 60's we learned that in order to change the world, we must change ourselves first."
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TylerxDurden
Registered: 09/30/07
Posts: 634
Loc: California
Last seen: 7 days, 23 hours
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Re: Men charged in major pot ring [WI] [Re: n20forme]
#7999439 - 02/09/08 09:12 AM (6 months, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
n20forme said:
"This is not the typical Mexican ditch weed. This is high-grade, highly sought-after northern California hydro."
"They also learned that the men had purchased a $60,000 John Deere tractor for farming the marijuana in California, they say."
Last time I checked you did not need a tractor for an indoor hydro setup lol
That's EXACTLY what I was going to say....It may be the cops trying to sound cool by saying "hydro" and not knowing what the fuck it means. I sure have seen that lately, people thinking "hydro" is a strain of weed. 
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nihilistism
king of thecastle
Registered: 01/03/07
Posts: 158
Loc: Hernando's Hideaway
Last seen: 6 days, 7 hours
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Re: Men charged in major pot ring [WI] [Re: TylerxDurden]
#8000606 - 02/09/08 03:25 PM (6 months, 14 days ago) |
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This is the second "big bust" in the past 6 months in my area(southern WI) and yet, I am still completely unaffected by it. The war on drugs sure is working wonders.
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http://www.last.fm/user/nihilistism/
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