Marijuana-Farm Suspects Called Part of ‘Organized Crime Group’

Eight men--including five from Orange County--who were indicted on charges of operating an $8-million marijuana plantation in Northern California are part of an “organized crime group” involved in drug and other “criminal endeavors,” an investigator said Thursday.

“These people are not classified as Mafia or Cosa Nostra but are an organized group,” said Charlie Stowell, deputy incident commander of the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), the inter-agency group that investigated the case.

The eight men have been charged with growing about 2,500 marijuana plants in a mountainous area called Keno Camp in Trinity County. The plantation was discovered and eradicated a year ago today, but it took an extensive investigation to track down the key players in the scheme, authorities said when the indictments were announced Wednesday in Sacramento.

Other Criminal Activities

Stowell said Thursday that the investigation is continuing into the group’s other criminal activities, both in Northern and Southern California. The eight, he said, are part of a larger group that is involved in “other criminal endeavors, some of them drug-related.”

He said he could not reveal details of the other suspected criminal activities. Officials are being careful not to jeopardize the ongoing investigation or the men’s trial, scheduled to begin Aug. 10 in Sacramento, he said.

However, authorities said Wednesday that two of the indicted men, both from Los Angeles County, were arrested Dec. 31 by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on cocaine charges. Stowell said several of the eight men had criminal records, but he would not elaborate.

The indictments of the eight in the Keno Camp case were issued last month by a federal grand jury in Sacramento but were ordered sealed until the men were arrested. Six of the men were arrested in the last week, but two--Anthony Phillip Caronna, 40, of Covina and Ignacio Barazza, 26, of Santa Ana--remain at large.

Others allegedly involved in the marijuana plantation are Louis Joseph Bonacci, 57, and his son, Richard Gene Bonacci, 32, both of San Clemente; Carl John Russo Sr., 56, and his son, Carl John Russo Jr., 34, both of Laguna Niguel; Anthony Joseph Matano, 52, of Redding, and Ronald John Caiello, 52, of Arcadia.

Operation Traced Back

Richard Bonacci, reached at home Thursday, declined comment. None of the other Orange County men could be contacted.

Stowell said CAMP has designated the Keno Camp case as a “historical conspiracy regarding a non-traditional organized crime group.” CAMP is a coalition of 105 federal, state and local agencies that work to eradicate marijuana cultivation in California.

The “historical conspiracy,” he said, refers to the fact that after seizing the marijuana, investigators “backtracked” the operation for several years. He called it a “painstaking investigation” that determined information such as where the men purchased materials, where they obtained all-terrain vehicles used in marijuana farming, where they were living and with whom they associated. The investigation also tracked the group’s activities after the July 3, 1986, confiscation, Stowell said.

The group is called “non-traditional organized crime” because the men are not affiliated with such groups as the Mafia, but they have formed a ring that conspires and organizes criminal activities, Stowell said.

He said he could not reveal whether the men work in legitimate businesses that serve as a “front” for criminal activities. “All that will come out in court,” he said.