2 Ex-DWP Employees Indicted in Drug Case : Court: They plead not guilty to charges stemming from discovery of underground farm for growing marijuana beneath steam plant in Playa del Rey.

Two former Department of Water and Power workers have been indicted on criminal charges stemming from the construction of a secret underground marijuana farm beneath the Scattergood steam plant in Playa del Rey.

Boyd L. Duffin Jr., 37, and Richard V. Viduka, 32, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of grand theft and conspiracy to possess marijuana for sale. Duffin also pleaded not guilty to a charge of receiving stolen property for allegedly having DWP tools and equipment at his Palmdale home. Authorities said more indictments may follow.

Authorities consider Duffin, Viduka and a third former employee, whose identity was not disclosed, the key players in the construction of two 10-by-40-foot underground rooms beneath a concrete construction slab near the center of the 40-acre generating station site.

Officials initially would only speculate that the two rooms were to be used as a marijuana farm. But supporting documents released with the indictments indicate that officials now have no doubt.

“Defendants painted the interior of the unauthorized underground rooms white to assist in cultivation of marijuana,” the indictments said. “The defendants installed a lighting system in the unauthorized underground rooms . . . to assist in the cultivation of marijuana.”

Investigator Chuck Rubidoux said chemical tests on soil samples taken from the two rooms revealed traces of marijuana.

Officials, who said they first saw the rooms March 1, estimated that $30,000 in DWP materials and labor were used to build and stock the rooms, which had been outfitted with sophisticated air-conditioning and air-filtration systems, running water, plastic-lined reservoirs and pumps to catch and redistribute water, and more than 40 electrical outlets near ceiling level.

Although there were no grow lights or planters in either room, both chambers were outfitted with metal mounting supports in the ceilings, from which light fixtures could be hung. Investigators also found two 100-foot rolls of irrigation hose and a large jar of nitric acid, which is used as a base for fertilizers.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Gordon said a DWP manager told investigators that he found Duffin and Viduka in the rooms in November, 1990, after he heard music drifting up from an entrance hidden in an employee exercise room near the chambers. The manager ordered the men to seal off the entrance, Gordon said.

Gordon would not say whether the manager reported the presence of the rooms to his superiors, or why officials have said they did not know of the rooms until the following March.

Shortly after the first entrance was sealed, a second was secretly built 60 feet away inside a tool shed. A trapdoor hidden beneath a tool cabinet led to a narrow crawl space that extended into the rooms.

Gordon called the case fascinating.

“The amount of planning and sophistication and the brazenness that went into this is unusual,” he said. “It was a planned, sophisticated operation.”

Both Duffin, a DWP construction supervisor for more than six years, and Viduka, who had worked as a “daily rate” carpenter for the agency since June, 1987, declined to talk about the case Monday. Both were fired in May.

But Duffin, in an interview shortly after he was fired, said he knew nothing about the rooms until he was accused by investigators last March of helping build them.

Viduka “told them he was following orders from me (to build the rooms), which is absolutely not true,” Duffin said at the time. “I stand firm in my statement that I’m innocent. I’m going to do everything I can to vindicate myself.”

Viduka quietly read a Bible during pauses in the court proceedings, speaking only to enter his plea.

“We’ll beat it. They got the wrong man,” said Viduka’s attorney, Winston W. Parkman.

Underground Marijuana Farm

Here is a diagram of how two underground marijuana-growing rooms were kept hidden at the Scattergood steam plant in Playa del Rey. The roof hiding the 10-foot-by-40-foot rooms is a concrete construction slab installed at the same time the rooms were built. Two former DWP employees have been indicted on charges related to construction of the rooms.

The construction slab is used to store gravel and dirt being used for a variety of building projects at the generating station.

The eight-foot-high rooms, designed to grow marijuana, are hidden under the slab. An elaborate ventilation, irrigation and lighting system was in place.

The original entrance to the secret rooms was located inside an employee exercise room. The entrance was sealed off after a manager discovered the rooms.

A second entrance was built beneath a toolshed and connected to the rooms by a 60-foot-long tunnel through which people could crawl.