Indoor Pot Plantation Too Hot to Hide

After an informant told police that a San Dimas homeowner might be growing marijuana, drug agents took to the air in a helicopter equipped with an infrared sensor and found that they had received a hot tip.

“The house was generating enormous amounts of heat,” said Sgt. John Andrews of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Information Bureau. Agents got another clue when they checked with Southern California Edison Co. and learned that utility bills for the house were running more than $3,000 a month.

The agents discovered the reason for the heat and high utility bills when they raided the hillside home Tuesday morning and found a high-tech hydroponic hothouse. The two-story, 5,000-square-foot house contained 2,500 marijuana plants basking under special 1,000-watt light bulbs and soaking up nutrient-enriched water.

“This guy was cloning his own very sophisticated, high-quality marijuana,” Andrews said. “He was trying to get a really high-yield plant.”

Two Men Arrested

The house’s owner, Rollin Scott Forteville, 38, and another man, Jeff Jenkins, 26, were arrested at the house on suspicion of cultivating marijuana.

Carbon dioxide was pumped into the house to replace that consumed by the plants. The marijuana ranged from seedlings to six-foot-tall mature plants. Some had already been harvested and packaged for sale.

“It’s the most unique (seizure), not only in Los Angeles County but in the state of California, as far as the number of plants grown inside a house,” Andrews said.

With the growing use of infrared cameras that can spot marijuana from the air, Andrews said, many growers are moving their operations inside. “That’s the new trend, so that they’re not detected as easily as they would be in the field,” he said. “They also don’t have to worry as much about getting it stolen.”

Agents do not know how long marijuana was grown in the house, which Forteville bought in 1981 with $400,000 cash, Andrews said. Surveillance began recently after authorities received a tip from an informant, he said.

The marijuana seized had an estimated street value of $2.5 million, Andrews said. Agents also found about 30 weapons, including one semiautomatic assault rifle, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, he said.

The investigation was conducted by the San Gabriel Valley Narcotics Enforcement Team, which includes officers from the state Bureau of Narcotics, sheriff’s deputies and members of 11 local police departments. Forteville and Jenkins were jailed in lieu of $1-million bail.