BANGOR, Maine — The three men convicted more than two years ago in connection with operating the state’s most sophisticated outdoor marijuana plantation in Township 37 are to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
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 on Jan. 24, 2014, following a 10-day jury trial.
They are to be sentenced along with Haynes Timberland Inc., the firm that owns the land where the farm was located, by U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock on Wednesday in federal court in Bangor.
The sentencings 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.
Originally scheduled for September, the daylong hearing had to be delayed because of the judge’s schedule.
The U.S. attorney’s office has recommended what the defendants’ sentencing guideline ranges should be but not a specific amount of time each should be incarcerated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Casey said in a June 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 seven months in prison.
A joint recommendation submitted by Casey and the attorney for Haynes Timberland recommended a fine of $450,000 be imposed. The firm previously agreed to pay $1.55 million to retain ownership of Township 37, which the jury ordered be forfeited as a result of the convictions. The $1.55 million has been paid, according to court documents.
French, Chase and Russell have been held at the Piscataquis County Jail without bail since their convictions. 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 in Washington County.
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 for 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.
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