Pubdate: Sat, 03 Jun 2006
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Doug Schmidt
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

'HARSH' PENALTY FOR GROW HOUSE DEALER

A Windsor Superior Court judge said he is putting drug traffickers on 
notice that incarceration will be the price for anyone setting up 
marijuana grow houses in residential areas.

"Jail ... is a definite deterrent," Justice Joseph Quinn said Friday 
in sentencing Trung Kien Ha to 18 months in prison for converting a 
South Windsor home into a "sophisticated grow operation" with a 
bypassed hydro meter.

Crown attorney Richard Pollock, who had argued for a 21-month jail 
term, said it was one of the harshest sentences ever meted out 
locally for such an offence to a perpetrator with an otherwise 
spotless record. Defence lawyer Mark Kramer had sought a sentence of 
house arrest for the 34-year-old father of two young daughters.

Ha was convicted following a six-day trial in March for his 
connection to the largest marijuana bust in the city's history, when 
police raided 11 homes and apartments in June 2004. Seven people were 
arrested and police seized an estimated $5.5 million in pot, $10,000 
in cash and growing equipment worth approximately $100,000.

Ha was fingered as the principal culprit behind a 480-plant grow in a 
home owned by his father in the 3900-block of Acorn Crescent. A 
marijuana production and trafficking trial targeting his mother and 
another relative -- involving two other grow houses -- starts June 
26, while a third court action involving more homes converted to grow 
houses commences Sept. 11, with Ha's brother and wife being the accused.

While all those arrested in the co-ordinated raids two years ago are 
related by blood or marriage, the prosecution has split up the legal 
actions in order to simplify the process. Quinn said he could only 
take the Acorn Crescent facts into account in sentencing Ha.

Ha was given concurrent 18-month sentences for separate production 
and trafficking convictions, as well as a three-month concurrent term 
for theft of hydro. After his jail time, Ha will be put on probation 
for eight months and be prohibited from possessing weapons for 10 years.

The judge said Ha was never able to explain how he owned houses in 
Toronto and LaSalle and was able to pay $40,000 for a Honda Odyssey 
just months before his 2004 arrest, despite not having worked since 
2001. Another "troubling factor," said Quinn, was that Ha expressed 
no remorse for his crime. Quinn ordered Ha to repay Enwin Utilities 
$7,282.04 in restitution for stolen power.

The judge expressed concern with the "flourishing" number of grow ops 
in Essex County but said offering jail time will have the 
perpetrators "weighing the consequences" more of getting caught.
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