Pounds Of Marijuana

In Baltimore CityPlanning Commission OKs plan for site at Locust PointA local developer's plan to convert the Procter & Gamble Co. soap-making plant into a $53 million office and retail complex called The Point passed a key hurdle yesterday when the city Planning Commission approved a bill that would allow the project to be carried out as an "Industrial Planned Unit Development."Conversion of the property at 1422 Nicholson St. by Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse is expected to bring up to 2,000 jobs to Locust Point, an area decimated by closings of manufacturing plants.

Anne Arundel County police arrested an Odenton man on drug charges late Wednesday after they found more than 17 pounds of marijuana in a van parked in Crofton.Ricardo Muno De Jesus Docounto, 26, of the 2600 block of Evergreen Road, was charged with with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.Acting on a tip from Prince George's County police, the Anne Arundel county tactical narcotics team began watching a 1971 Dodge van parked in the 1600 block of Route 3 in Crofton after 11 p.m. Wednesday, police said.

MIDDLESEX, Va. -- Leah Congleton, who five years ago was quoted in her high school yearbook as saying she would never wear bell-bottoms, now wears inmate attire: orange pants, orange tunic, orange flip-flops.Smart, popular and pretty, she seemed to have it all together as a student at Middlesex High. She was on the honor roll, a cheerleader and planned to be a teacher. But the 19-year-old's future now includes a prison sentence for dealing marijuana.For Leah, perfection in high school academics and activities masked problems at home, where there were discipline and substance-abuse problems.

Anne Arundel County police are headed to a grand jury with 426 pounds of marijuana they seized from deliveries to a Millersville business and other evidence they say links the owner to drug operations in Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties.Police said yesterday they will seek a drug trafficking indictment against Nnamdi C. Lawson, 30, of the 7700 block of Tobruk Court in the Harmans Woods section of Hanover. Montgomery County police issued an arrest warrant for Lawson earlier this month after they seized about 200 pounds of marijuana from the Gaithersburg office of his business, Copy and Parcel, in the 300 block of Muddy Branch Road.

County police arrested a Baltimore County man Tuesday night and charged him with possession of $6,000 worth of marijuana at an Ellicott City shopping center.Police said they staked out Saint Johns Plaza after receiving a tip about drug activity there, and observed a transaction.Officers arrested Benjamin Ellicott Farr, 27, of the 6000 block of Lake View Road in Towson and charged him with possession of 6 pounds of marijuana and a deadly weapon, police said.Pub Date: 1/28/99

A Laurel man pleaded guilty to selling marijuana to undercover state police and was sentenced yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court to five years in prison.Matthew W. Mills, 22, of Fort Meade Road also received three consecutive five-year sentences on marijuana possession and distribution charges, which were suspended.Mills must complete five years of supervised probation upon his release and pay $9,500 in restitution to the state police, the amount undercover troopers paid Mills for 7 pounds of marijuana during an investigation in August and September.

A Laurel man pleaded guilty to selling marijuana to undercover state police and was sentenced yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court to five years in prison.Matthew W. Mills, 22, of Fort Meade Road also received three consecutive five-year sentences on marijuana possession and distribution charges, which were suspended.Mills must complete five years of supervised probation upon his release and pay $9,500 in restitution to the state police, the amount undercover troopers paid Mills for 7 pounds of marijuana XTC during an investigation in August and September.

An article in yesterday's City/County Digest mispelled the name of Marion A. Stronski, 70, of Parkville, a supervisor with a company handling bulk paper cargo who was fatally struck by a forklift Wednesday at Locust Point Marine Terminal.The Sun regrets the error.OWINGS MILLS -- County police seized 20 pounds of marijuana, two guns, three vehicles and $16,000 this week.In a search of two Owings Mills homes about 5 p.m. Wednesday, Garrison Precinct detectives confiscated a car, a motorcycle, two guns and 10 pounds of marijuana, said Detective Doug Irwin.

One of the largest marijuana seizures in Howard County history and the arrest of two suspected dealers last week crippled a regional drug ring, police said yesterday.Acting on a tip, Howard County detectives last Thursday seized about 325 pounds of the drug, valued at about $422,500, at an Ellicott City "stash house."After keeping the investigation under wraps last week to protect undercover detectives, police said they would continue the probe into the ring, which extended from a small California town to dealers and "go-betweens" in Howard, Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties.

Police raided 10 rowhouses in a West Baltimore neighborhood and one in Woodlawn yesterday morning in an attempt to break up a group of suspected marijuana dealers who investigators said targeted suburban users.Detectives said they seized more than 40 pounds of marijuana -- the bulk coming from a duffel bag found in one house -- $40,000 in cash, four sawed-off shotguns, five handguns and three cars.Sgt. Michael Caperoon, of the Western Police District's operations squad, said 15 people between ages 20 and 40 were arrested yesterday on drug distribution charges.

When it absolutely, positively had to get there, someone in Florida used FedEx to ship marijuana to addresses in the Baltimore area. But the shipping company botched one of the deliveries, triggering an undercover operation that led to the arrest of a city man and the seizure of 600 pounds of the drug, police said yesterday. Police were tipped off when four boxes were mistakenly delivered Tuesday to a Northeast Baltimore resident who opened one and discovered a "large shrink wrapped bundle of a green plant material," charging documents say. City officers and Maryland State Police troopers posed as FedEx employees the next day to snare the intended recipient of the 200-pound shipment.

A 28-year-old Atlanta man was arrested Tuesday by a Maryland Transportation Authority officer after police said they found nearly 146 pounds of marijuana during a routine traffic stop. Themba K. Koyi was driving south on Interstate 95 in Baltimore County when his rented 2008 Nissan sedan was stopped by a transportation authority officer for speeding, police said. The drugs, valued at more than $200,000, were discovered during a check of the vehicle, police said.

A Baltimore man caught with 350 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle received a 15-year sentence in federal court yesterday. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz sentenced Chester Griffiths, 44, on a single count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Police arrested him June 15, 2006, with the drugs at a truck stop in Howard County. The marijuana has a street value of about $400,000, prosecutors said.

A 43-year-old Baltimore man pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to possessing about $400,000 worth of marijuana. According to the plea agreement, a law enforcement officer saw Chester Griffiths' vehicle at a truck stop in Howard County on June 15. After discovering that the vehicle's registration had been suspended, the officer found more than 350 pounds of marijuana inside. Griffiths could receive a maximum of life in prison with a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz scheduled sentencing for April 17.

Baltimore police heard a tantalizing rumor: A pair of men were selling about 100 pounds of marijuana a week in Hampden, Canton, Pigtown and Highlandtown. Informants told detectives that marijuana was getting popular because cocaine was scarce. "No powder man, bud is where we're all running," said one informant, according to a police document obtained by The Sun. Early yesterday, police officers raided a Sparrows Point bar, two homes in Dundalk and one home in Baltimore. Police said they arrested two men and three women and seized 92 pounds of marijuana.

More than 400 pounds of marijuana - compressed into heavy blocks, wrapped in plastic and coated with an oil to cover the odor - were confiscated after a rookie Howard County police officer stopped a vehicle for failing to have an emissions test and smelled the drug. Officer David Aronovic said that he was running license plate numbers through a computer database in his patrol car around 11:45 p.m. Wednesday in Jessup when the registration on Chester Griffiths' 1995 Jeep Cherokee popped up as suspended.

A federal judge sentenced a Baltimore man who served as a firefighter to two years in prison yesterday for helping transport nearly 150 pounds of marijuana in Texas. U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis imposed the sentence on Carl H. Kus, 40, of Baltimore for interstate traveling in the aid of racketeering. He also ordered that the prison term be followed by three years of supervised probation. According to court papers, Kus, Antony Marcantoni and Adrian LaCasse flew from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to Houston on May 12, 2002, using tickets paid for by Kus. Authorities said Marcantoni and LaCasse were each carrying large sums of money for marijuana that Marcantoni and Kus had arranged to purchase.

Howard County prosecutors yesterday dropped drug trafficking charges against a California truck driver stopped Jan. 12 on Interstate 95 with what police said was 103 pounds of marijuana stashed in a hidden compartment of his vehicle. Alejandro P. Chavez, 48, of Pixley, Calif., had been jailed since the incident. "Mr. Chavez did not know drugs were in the truck," State's Attorney Timothy J. McCrone said.

Maryland Transportation Authority Police seized marijuana with an estimated street value of $750,000 during a commercial vehicle inspection in Perryville on Thursday afternoon, the agency said in a statement yesterday. Police noticed a suspicious green trash bag during their inspection of a 1998 Freightliner tractor-trailer at the vehicle scale house on northbound Interstate 95, according to the statement. After a search of the vehicle, five large plastic trash bags, containing about 165 pounds of marijuana in 145 individual bags, were discovered, police said.

In Baltimore City Man, 24, gets life in fatal shooting of 16-year-old girl A Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday in city Circuit Court to two concurrent life sentences for the murder of a 16-year-old girl, who was killed a day after her birthday, and the attempted murder of another teen-ager. Tony "T.O." DeWitt, 24, of the 2500 block of Harford Road received a life sentence in the July 2002 killing of Sherene Moore. He also was given a concurrent life sentence, with all but 30 years suspended, for the attempted murder of Maurice Booker, 17. Prosecutors said DeWitt fatally shot Moore as she and a group of friends sat on the steps of a home in the 1700 block of Montpelier St. Booker, who was on the steps with the group, was wounded once in the shoulder as he tried to run away.