Deputies, U.S. Forest Service agents and Washington State troopers destroyed 25,765 marijuana plants in the Eckler Mountain area of the Umatilla National Forest on Thursday, the biggest single grow eradicated in Washington state that year, narcotics deputy Jeff Jenkins said.[1][2] A day earlier the team had arrested Jose Meraz Farias, 42, and Martin Chipres Madriz, 43, at a smaller grow near Hartsock grade and destroyed 2,300 plants there.[1][2] Both men were armed, one with a Browning .22 pistol and the other with a Smith and Wesson 9 mm handgun, and each was charged with manufacturing marijuana and being an undocumented non-citizen in possession of a firearm.[1][2]
The sheriff’s office put the street value of the Thursday haul alone at about $25.7 million.[1] Some 50 officers took part, including a SWAT team from Walla Walla and a National Guard helicopter whose spotter had found the terraced hillside plots from the air in early August.[1][2]
A summer of grows
The raids followed the 18 July arrest of Santiago Orozco Contreras, 41, found washing clothes at a camp in the Cold Creek area of the upper Tucannon, where officers removed 2,000 plants.[2] Orozco reached for a .380-caliber pistol at his hip when confronted, and the appeal court later confirmed his federal conviction for manufacturing 1,000 or more marijuana plants and carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking crime.[2][3]
Together with a fourth site found late in July, officers took down almost 37,000 plants worth about $37 million that summer.[2]
Different outcomes
Prosecutors wanted all three men tried federally, where the same charges could bring up to five years.[1][4] Orozco was turned over to federal authorities for indictment, while Farias and Madriz stayed in the county system after the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined their cases for lack of resources.[5] Madriz pleaded guilty and received six months in county jail; Farias signed a plea deal for the same half-year term, and both faced deportation by federal immigration authorities.[5]
