RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – A homeless man has been charged with growing 70 pot plants near his campsite in Rutland.

Forty-four-year-old Paul Godfrey, who was arrested in August after someone told police a homeless man was living and growing at the end of Randbury Road, pleaded not guilty to a felony cultivation charge Monday.

Police say when they visited the site, Godfrey showed them the plants and said they were for his own consumption. Godfrey said he’d transplanted many of them after losing his home two months before.

He faces up to 15 years in prison and a $500,000, if convicted of the charges.