RANGELEY – A Temple man “froze in his tracks” when he found interlopers in a field of 32 marijuana plants Wednesday, according to Lt. Niles Yeaton, detective for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.
Elliot Barden, 42, of Temple, “came be-bopping into” the field off Route 4 and saw police pawing through the weeds, Yeaton said Thursday.
Barden, arriving on an ATV, showed up with two 5-gallon buckets of water and fertilizer at the field, where sheriff’s deputies, Rangeley police, state drug enforcement agents, state wardens and federal Border Patrol officers were conducting surveillance, Yeaton said.
The ATV was found to belong to Norman White, 49, of Rangeley, and Barden’s vehicle was later located at White’s nearby camp. Police searched the camp and found a small amount of marijuana, a smoking device, drug paraphernalia and $2,000 cash.
Barden and White were charged with growing pot and taken to the Franklin County jail, where Barden was released on $100 cash bail and White on $3,000 unsecured bond. They are scheduled to appear in court Oct. 26, Yeaton said.
The plants in the field were about five feet tall, Yeaton said, and would have been mature within four to six weeks, at which time they would be worth about $80,000. More than 1,200 plants worth more than $2.4 million have been harvested by police in Franklin County this year, Yeaton said.
Finding a grower in his field is unusual, he added. “It doesn’t happen very often.”
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