Global Ganja Report

Federal prosecutors in Dayton are wrapping up a case against 11 immigrant men charged with cultivating thousands of cannabis plants. All have pleaded guilty and seven have received sentences ranging from a year to 18 months in prison. When the arrests were announced in the fall, state Attorney General Richard Cordray said the case was further evidence of what he called "cartel-sponsored mega-marijuana farms taking root in Ohio." But defense attorneys say the defendants were poor day laborers trying to earn money for their families with no idea about what they were being hired to do.

Complaints filed in the case by DEA officers say numerous men were found at the camp in Muskingum County separating cannabis buds from harvested plants when the farm was raided last Sept. 20. Defense attorneys for the men charge that the hasty arrests squandered the opportunity to learn more about the operation. Said Peter Certo, whose client, Manuel Castrejon-Sanchez, 37, received a 14-month sentence: "If they had the ability to wait to find out where this stuff was going as opposed to seizing it all in the field they might have found out a lot more about who was organizing this thing." (Fox News Latino, Aug. 7)

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