County IN BRIEF : MALIBU : Pot Raid Yields $1.5-Million Crop

An anonymous tip on Sunday led Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to a marijuana farm off Topanga Canyon Road in Malibu whose crop was worth an estimated street value of $1.5 million, according to sheriff’s deputies. Detectives followed garden hoses from the marijuana patches through a heavily wooded area to a nearby home, where they arrested Christopher Conde, 27, on a charge of cultivating marijuana. In the rented house, officers found scales, packaging material and five pounds of dried marijuana in bags that could be sold, said Detective John Cater. The sheriff’s department is investigating whether at least one other suspect may have been involved. The marijuana plants, in seven gardens, were in transportable buckets and ranged from seedlings to man-high specimens ready for harvest, according to Cater.