[symple_googlemap title=”” location=”42000 East View Way, Murrieta” height=”300″ zoom=”15″]
Two Orange County secret pot growers who rewired a home’s electric meter to hide increased power use to grow more than 500 marijuana plants pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal charges.
Le My Hoang, 33, and Sam Elliot Anderson, 29, both of Garden Grove, entered their pleas to charges of grand theft, illegal cultivation of marijuana and vandalism in connection with the grow operation.
Hoang and Anderson are scheduled to be sentenced in January.
According to Murrieta police Sgt. Mark Reid, the defendants were under surveillance by narcotics investigators before they were stopped on Interstate 15, near Clinton Keith Road, on the afternoon of April 3, 2016.
After the men were detained in the Murrieta house in Riverside County, a search warrant was executed at their property in the 42000 block of East View Way. Reid said investigators seized more than 500 cannabis plants in various stages of growth inside the house.
The electrical meter had been rewired to feed sufficient power into the home to keep numerous sunlamps burning day and night without running up a high utility bill, resulting in thousands of dollars in stolen wattage, according to Reid.
Neither defendant has prior documented felony convictions in Riverside County.
— City News Service