◼ Garberville developer sentenced to six years for pot operation
One of two Humboldt County residents who pleaded guilty to allegations of overseeing a massive marijuana cultivation and money laundering operation was sentenced this week to serve six years in federal prison.
Jessie Jeffries, 28, of Garberville, and Jordan Pyhtila, 29, of Rio Dell, entered guilty pleas in May to charges of maintaining a place to manufacture marijuana and money laundering, admitting to purchasing and maintaining a number of properties located in Humboldt County for the purpose of growing marijuana.
While the maximum sentence was 20 years for each of the two counts he faced, Jeffries was sentenced Wednesday to serve six years in prison. Pyhtila is scheduled to be sentenced next month.
...According to documents in Jeffries' file, the defendants' marijuana cultivation operation had been running in Mendocino and Humboldt counties from 1999 through 2008.
”Over this time period, the defendants' involvement in marijuana cultivation evolved -- the defendants went from growing the marijuana themselves to becoming financiers who supplied funding and/or property for others to cultivate marijuana,” one of the documents states. “The defendants also operated a construction business -- J&J Earthmoving -- that was financed in part by profits the two earned from their marijuana cultivation and financing activities.”
The document goes on to state that the two also earned income through the business from legitimate activities, including the construction of a subdivision in Rio Dell.
According to a August 2007 article in the Times-Standard, Jeffries and Pyhtila started J&J Earthmoving in 2000 to purchase and develop real estate properties that were classified as “undesirable.” Pyhtila told the Times-Standard that the company would clear the properties of junk and debris, and fix them up by installing septic systems and, eventually, building homes with the aim of reselling them. Pyhtila said earnings from this business allowed the pair to purchase a 180-acre parcel located above Rio Dell that is commonly known as the Dinsmore Plateau.
The two planned to develop 100 acres of the property with a 60-home, environmentally friendly subdivision, with home prices ranging from $300,000 to $500,000, and had even invested money to install a water tank and begun preparing the property for development....
Ironic on several levels - one being it looks like pot is about to become legalized and render their crime permissible, at least part of it. There'd still be tax evasion, etc.
But this is a stretch:
”Tragically, the conduct that brought (Pyhtila) before the Court was largely the product of a misguided youth growing up in a community that has a permissive attitude toward marijuana cultivation,” Moorman writes. “This attitude leaves so many thinking nothing can ever happen to them. As the Court knows, that is all too often a very mistaken perception.”
I went to a sales pitch held on the Dinsmore Plateau by Jordan and the company he hired to do the subdivision plan given to the Rio Dell City Council with Nancy Fleming at the head of discussions with him. I had had my eye on the Dinsmore Plateau ever since moving to Rio Dell as a potential site for a Heartlands headquarters or a Palco Community Corp. site for developing community self-sufficiency system kits. It is a remarkable piece of land that Rio Dell has jurisdiction over and I had hoped Jordan's subdivision wouldn't go through as it was a waste of that land on up-scale expensive homes few if anyone could afford around here. Lo and behold, I find out this year that Jordan's in a mess of trouble with the law. I wonder what's happening with the ownership of that land now as confiscated property. Some realtor will step in and scoop up a deal probably from the State.
ReplyDeleteThey thought they were safe?
ReplyDeleteOf course. They own the D.A.
But they don't own the U.S. Attorney's Office.
ReplyDelete