Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Two men have been charged with turning a Queens home into a high-tech pot farm that cultivated more than $1.5 million in top-quality marijuana, prosecutors said Friday.
Police raided the house in the affluent Douglaston Manor section and seized 1,500 marijuana plants, some four feet tall, along with $1,200 in cash and high-powered fluorescent lamps, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a news release.
“The defendants are alleged to have thought that they would be able to hide in plain sight an illegal drug farming operation but, of course, they were mistaken,” Brown said.
The 300 pounds of marijuana were six times as potent and would have sold for five times more than garden-variety pot, prosecutors said.
Charged with criminal possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia were Vincent Sansone, 38, and Robert Diaz, 34, both of Queens.
Neither man had retained a lawyer, prosecutors said.
The investigation was conducted by the Queens District Attorney’s office, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and the New York Police Department.