10,000 Pot Plants Seized in Antelope Valley Bust

More than 10,000 marijuana plants were uprooted and destroyed after a rural lot, crowded with the illegal crop, was discovered in the Antelope Valley by sheriff’s deputies on a routine helicopter patrol, authorities said Monday.

Investigators said it was one of the largest seizures of marijuana plants in the Los Angeles area in recent years.

Suspect Arrested

John McDonald, 50, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of cultivating and possessing marijuana for sale after deputies raided his back yard in the 20400 block of East Avenue R near Palmdale, Deputy Dan Cox said.

Narcotics investigators said that behind McDonald’s home they found 10,000 to 15,000 marijuana plants, ranging from two to five feet in height, growing in tightly planted rows.

Deputies also seized 30 one-pound bags of dried and packaged marijuana from a trailer on the property.

“There were plants all over the place,” said a narcotics detective who headed the raid but did not wish to be identified.

“They were really packed in there. They were in furrowed rows with sprinklers, the whole setup. He just didn’t go out like Jack and the Beanstalk and toss seeds on the ground.”

The property where the marijuana was growing is about a quarter of a mile from the nearest house and shielded from ground view by a plywood fence, deputies said.

A bamboo lattice was built over the plants, apparently to shade and hide them from above.

But deputies said part of the bamboo covering had either blown away or fallen and the shiny green leaves of marijuana were easily spotted when the sheriff’s helicopter flew over about noon Sunday.

‘Like a Sore Thumb’

“From above it stuck out like a sore thumb,” said the narcotics deputy.

“The plants were shining like emeralds.”

Deputies took photographs of the marijuana garden from the helicopter and used them to obtain a search warrant.

McDonald, who had lived on the property about a year, was arrested without incident and remained jailed Monday at the Antelope Valley sheriff’s substation in lieu of $150,000 bail.

Deputies spent most of Sunday afternoon uprooting the plants and then loading them into a truck.

Though some plants were kept for evidence, the rest were burned Sunday night.

Deputies estimated the load of plants weighed more than 750 pounds and could have produced several hundred thousand dollars worth of marijuana.

Narcotics deputies said the Sheriff’s Department does not keep a record of the largest seizures from marijuana gardens.

But Sunday’s seizure would probably rank among the largest in the area in recent years, according to Diana Machen, operations commander of Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a multiagency task force that targets pot growers, primarily in Northern California.