FARMINGTON — A Franklin Superior Court justice amended requested bail conditions Wednesday for a Farmington man accused of growing and selling marijuana.

Robert J. Sirois, 56, was arrested and charged along with three other men, Charles Correll, 50, of Farmington; Eric Hall, 38, and Matthew Hemingway, 45, both of Industry, in September on charges of trafficking and cultivating marijuana.

The men were each released on $250 cash bail and are scheduled to appear Dec. 18 in a Farmington court.

Sirois' attorney David Sanders requested Wednesday that Sirois' bail be amended to lift the prohibition on use or possession of alcohol and the no-contact provision with co-defendants. He also requested that the requirement for random search and seizure without probable cause be lifted on the drug charges.

Sanders said the men were part of Sirois' social circle and one of them works for him and he sees no reason to prevent contact or for him to be randomly searched without cause.

Assistant District Attorney James Andrews said the reasons based on the synopsis of the police report is the amount of marijuana seized. He said the report says 32 ½ pounds of process marijuana, 101 pounds gross of recently harvested marijuana and 125 mature plants were seized. It was a large scale operation, Andrews said.

He said that the condition of search and testing without probable cause should stand.

Justice Michaela Murphy said she would strike the alcohol condition but would require search and testing for illegal drugs on articulate suspicion. She also lifted the no-contact provision with co-defendants.

She did say she thought the $250 cash bail was pretty low in such a case.

Drug agents and state police had been conducting surveillance for about a half-hour outside an Industry home following a tip that Sirois had been harvesting marijuana, Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Supervisor Gerry Baril said last month.

Sirois and others were clipping the plants at the farmhouse in Industry, Baril had said then.

Sirois was seen carrying a large bag into that residence and police later discovered it contained harvested marijuana, Baril said.

dperry@sunjournal.com