HARTFORD – A Hartford woman was arrested Friday on marijuana trafficking charges after police received a tip via the Internet.

Julia Justine St. James, 44, of Mountain View Drive was charged with aggravated trafficking in marijuana and aggravated cultivation of marijuana, both Class B felonies.

St. James, who offered no resistance, was transported to Oxford County jail in South Paris, where she was booked, Capt. James P. Miclon said.

St. James posted $10,000 cash and was released. She is to be arraigned at 10:30 a.m. June 8 in Rumford District Court.

At 12:30 p.m. Friday, Oxford County deputies executed a search warrant at St. James’ two-story home with assistance from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and Maine State Police, Miclon said.

“Deputy Chancey Libby and I met St. James at her home, as she was walking out from her greenhouse, which is located about 25 feet from her house,” Miclon said.

Libby told St. James why he and Miclon were there, and gave her a copy of the search warrant, while Cpl. Dane Tripp, Deputy Justin Brown, drug enforcement agent Tony Milligan, and Troopers James Nolan and Daniel Hanson searched for other occupants on the property.

Miclon said police seized more than 175 marijuana plants, in excess of an estimated three pounds of processed marijuana ready for distribution, and $715 cash.

“There was processed dope everywhere you looked inside the house,” Libby said at a 4:30 p.m. press conference at the Rumford Police Department.

Also found near the pot and seized were an unloaded 12-gauge shotgun and a .44-caliber Magnum revolver loaded with six bullets and one in the chamber ready to be fired, Milligan said.

Milligan said current street value of the processed marijuana was $3,000 due to its high quality.

But it was the pot plants found growing in the greenhouse that Milligan said would have netted the alleged trafficker a huge profit when harvested.

“They would have produced from half a pound to one pound per plant of processed marijuana. So there was a potential for 175 pounds of marijuana, and at $1,000 or $3,000 a pound depending on quality, that would have been a lot of money,” Milligan said.

Libby said he first learned that “St. James was growing and selling marijuana on her property,” when he received a call Jan. 9 from an Ohio employee of WeTip Inc., a California-based nonprofit company to which anonymous tips about criminal activity in the United States is reported.

“Someone left a tip on their Internet Web site – www.wetip.com – in Ohio, and that was directed to me in South Paris at the Sheriff’s Department,” Libby said.

“This is the first time that I’ve gotten a tip about criminal activity from the Internet,” he added.

Miclon praised Libby’s efforts.

“Deputy Chancey Libby has been doing an outstanding job investigating drug cases in the past year.”

Friday’s arrest was not a first for St. James. On July 28, 2002, police responded to a domestic disturbance complaint and discovered 44 pot plants at her home, Libby said. She was later convicted on one misdemeanor charge of marijuana cultivation and ordered to pay a $400 fine, Miclon added.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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