BANGOR, Maine — A federal judge Wednesday delayed the sentencing of three men convicted more than two years ago in connection with operating the state’s most sophisticated outdoor marijuana plantation but fined the firm that owned the land where it was located $100,000.
Malcolm French 54, of Enfield, Rodney Russell, 52, of South Thomaston and Kendall Chase, 59, of Bradford were found guilty on a variety of charges in connection with the pot farm, located in Township 37 in Washington County, on Jan. 24, 2014, after a 10-day jury trial.
In addition to convicting the men on a variety of charges, the jury found Haynes Timberland Inc., the firm that owns the land where the farm was located, guilty of maintaining a drug-involved place.
The trio was scheduled to be sentenced along with Haynes Timberland by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
Woodcock told the defendants’ more than 40 family members and friends in the gallery that he expected the sentencings would be reset for late March or early April. The judge said he had recently received motions concerning the sentencings that he needed time to review.
In addition to imposing the fine on Haynes Timberland, now owned by French’s wife, Barbara French of Enfield, Woodcock gave final approval to a deal that allows the firm to retain ownership of the 22,000 acres that makes up all of Township 37 in exchange for $1.55 million. The money has been in a government escrow account for about 22 months, according to court documents.
Jurors ordered that the land be forfeited to the government after reaching its verdict. Two other properties — a hunting camp in LaGrange and a warehouse complex in Township 31 — will be forfeited as the jury decided. The $100,000 fine was to be paid Wednesday.
The sentencings of Malcolm French, Russell and Chase will bring to an end a legal saga that began Sept. 22, 2009, when state and federal law enforcement officers raided the plantation and seized nearly 3,000 marijuana plants with an estimated street value between $6 million and $9 million. Undocumented workers lived at the remote site accessible only by dirt roads off the Stud Mill Road several miles north of Route 9.
The U.S. attorney’s office has determined what the defendants’ sentencing guideline ranges should be but has not yet recommended how long each should be incarcerated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Casey said in a June 2015 memorandum that French’s guideline range should be between 19½ years and 24 years. Russell’s guideline range should be between 15½ and 19½ years, and Chase’s should be between just over 10 years and 12 years and seven months in prison.
French, Chase and Russell have been held without bail since their convictions, most recently at the Somerset County Jail in East Madison. That time will be applied to their federal prison sentences.
Their co-defendant, Robert Berg, 52, of Corinna, pleaded guilty Jan. 7, 2014, shortly before the trio’s trial began to being an accessory after the fact to manufacturing 1,000 or more marijuana plants at a large marijuana farm in Township 37.
By pleading guilty, Berg admitted he knew about the pot plantation and that police had raided it Sept. 22, 2009, forcing workers to flee. The next day, a longtime friend asked Berg to pick up the undocumented workers in the woods in Washington County, according to the prosecution version of events to which he pleaded guilty.
He was sentenced to six months in prison followed by a year of supervised release. Berg, who is to be released from the federal prison camp in Ayers, Massachusetts, on April 10, also was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
In a separate case, Berg admitted on June 23, 2014, that his custom screen printing and embroidery company created fake logos of sports teams, a distillery, a tractor company and a motorcycle manufacturer.
Robert Berg Enterprises Inc., doing business as Berg Sportswear Inc., owned by Robert and Heather Berg, both of Corinna, had been under investigation for trafficking in counterfeit goods, money laundering and tax evasion for more than three years, according to court documents.
Berg did not face prison time on those charges.
Moises Soto, 55, of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, the man who recruited the undocumented workers who worked and lived on the plantation, is due to be released Sept. 7 from a federal correctional institution in Morgantown, West Virginia. Soto, who testified against French, Chase and Russell, pleaded guilty in July 2013 to a drug conspiracy charge and one count of harboring illegal aliens. He was sentenced to four years in prison, some of which was served while he was being held without bail after his arrest in March 2013.