Long time forum lurker and careful, experienced grower... now that the criminal case is done [and ~$9000 in], I have nothing more to fear -- time to drop some knowledge. Noobs & even confident growers, read up and take heed.. For the important TL;DR , skip to "LESSONS LEARNED".
SUMMARY POINTS:
LESSONS LEARNED:
OK... that's it for now... go ahead, AMA (ASK ME ANYTHING!
)
--x.
SUMMARY POINTS:
- Single-family suburban home, owned by me & wife for 3.5 years; Soil grower; several lovely strains (Blue Dream heirloom, unknown Kush from seed, unknown catpissy strain from seed, unknown Haze from seed), under CFLs and daylight throughout the house.
- Very private.. only those who needed to know, knew; Private surroundings, security system, fenced-in yard, no nosy neighbors etc.
- Raided by Wake County Alcoholic Beverage (ABC - whose sole purpose is tax revenue collection, BTW) controlled substances task force, August 15th, ~10:45AM while wife was out of town on business, and I was at work 6 mi. away. Came SWAT style, battered the front door and also a door-jam pet gate to the rear room (which they were too stupid to open), and cut off a lock from my outside storage shed, but didn't fuck shit up too bad otherwise.... still.. fuckin dicks.. I would've just let them in if they'd presented the warrant like fucking gentlemen.
- SEIZED:
- 3 bushes and 1 small stalk (flowering), all my CFLs (~400 watts worth) and double-sockets, fan, and cheapo timer from rear room closet;
- 10 various clones in lowlight semi-stasis from middle room closet;
- 4 mid-vegging in daylight from living room;
- all my pipes & Rizlas & empty storage jars, and a sentimental photo I took in Amsterdam in 2001 (WTF??);
- some crappy old nutes and pesticides (they left the good organic stuff for some reason - guessing they missed them)
- about an eighth of dried test buds and some trim
- some other weird miscellaneous shit, like a huge Rubbermaid bin that was in our hallway
- LEFT (baffled by some of this): small fan and CFLs from middle room, my bud grinder & scissors, some seeds, all the pots & soil, loads of good nutes, other miscellaneous shit
- Got a voicemail from Officer Josh C Tilton on my work line to call and chat... immediately found an attorney (Important!! -- should go without saying, but yes, you need an experienced lawyer ASAP)
LESSONS LEARNED:
- From the wording of the warrant and then shooting the shit with the agents when I turned myself in, I gleaned some valuable info (LISTEN UP!!!!):
- They were (and still are, I'm sure) watching traffic at the only local alternative garden store (Fifth Season Gardening - www.fifthseasongardening.com - the only place around here that sells FFOF and good perlite), taking down customers' license plates, tracking them down, then doing midnight "trash pulls" (i.e., stealing and digging through peoples' rotten fucking garbage) to find incriminating evidence. I fucked up and got in a shitty habit of throwing some dead leaves in the trash once in a while when I was too lazy to go flush them down the toilet. THIS IS WHAT GOT ME BUSTED. SERIOUSLY, IF YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM THIS, IT SHOULD BE: DO NOT THROW ANYTHING IN THE TRASH. Well, while you're at it learning things: IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, JUST STAY AWAY FROM THE INDOOR GARDEN STORES. THEY ARE APPARENTLY A MAGNET FOR LAZY SHITHEAD LAW ENFORCEMENT.
- [NOTE: I AM INTELLIGENTLY SPECULATING ABOUT FIFTH SEASON - THIS WAS NEVER CONFIRMED NOR DENIED BY THE AGENTS - THEY PLAYED DUMB WHEN I MENTIONED THE NAME - BUT IT'S THE ONLY TIE TO ANYTHING THAT MAKES ANY SENSE. I HEREBY DECLARE THAT I AM THEREFORE NOT INTENTIONALLY INTERFERING WITH AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION]
- North Carolina laws, law enforcement agencies, and court system are fucking HARSH AND MERCILESS when it comes to cannabis growers.
- 3 felonies and a misdemeanor for both me and my wife. My wife had nothing to do with any of it, doesn't even smoke weed, so all her charges were eventually dismissed in the plea bargain. I had to plead to 2 felonies and am now on 12 months supervised probation. If I had had a criminal record, it would have been much, much, much worse.
- As a final kick in the balls and tits, we got duplicate NC Dept. of Revenue "Unauthorized Substance" tax bills in the mail for $11,165.36 each. This is for the supposed 2268 grams of WET WHOLE PLANT MATERIAL, cut from the root ball and then weighed immediately after seizure. This hasn't yet been settled. We don't know what will happen with this bullshit, but NC statutes have been specifically spun and sharpened over the years to fuck people like me in the ass to try and collect revenue.
OK... that's it for now... go ahead, AMA (ASK ME ANYTHING!
) --x.
.. and yeh, the "evidence" for her arrest warrant was basically that she lived there and that it was in multiple rooms in the house. That's where the lawyer helped a lot - getting across to the stubborn-ass DA that it was all mine, and that she didn't participate. She was my main concern - I demanded to take all charges, since the only thing she was guilty of was supporting my love of horticulture and counterculture. <3
