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Mega-Pot ‘Crop Sitters’ Jailed.
By admin | October 20, 2004
Dan Palmer
Edmonton Sun
October 20, 2004.
Two men have been sentenced after police uncovered a marijuana grow operation last year “potentially” worth $10 million, one of the largest Alberta busts ever. But the large bust near Camrose hasn’t put much of a dent in the flow of the drug, say cops.
“Marijuana grow operations are ever-increasing,” said RCMP Cpl. Lorne Adamitz of the Green Team, an Edmonton city cop and Mountie unit that finds and dismantles large-scale pot operations.
George Nicholas Bodnar, 43, pleaded guilty on Oct. 14 in Wetaskiwin Court of Queen’s Bench to possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, and producing a controlled substance.
Bodnar was sentenced to two years on Oct. 15, given a year of probation, and a lifetime firearms prohibition.
James Robert Mitchell, 48, pleaded guilty to producing a controlled substance on Oct. 6 in Camrose provincial court.
Mitchell was sentenced to six months and given a 10-year firearms ban.
“We basically got two crop sitters,” said Adamitz, adding they are still looking for those believed to be primarily responsible for the large grow operation.
The two men were arrested on July 3, 2003, after about a dozen police officers – some on the Green Team, the Camrose RCMP, and the Mounties’ emergency response team – searched a farm northwest of Bittern Lake.
Cops found 10,415 marijuana plants in various stages of growth inside a barn on the farm.
“The potential on the street is $10 million,” said Adamitz.
“It still ranks as one of the largest (busts) in the province, as per plants.”
Cultivation equipment worth about $30,000 was also seized at the farm.
The farm was also the subject of at least another raid in the mid-1990s, when more than 700 marijuana plants were found on the property.
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