POT GROWERS SENTENCED IN ROANOKE

The well-educated, countercultural lot formed the region's biggest
marijuana ring of the 1990s.

Joseph "Jay" Smith III came of age in the early 1970s, he says, when
everyone he knew smoked pot and "marijuana was simply a part of life
for me."

That life became his livelihood in the late '80s and '90s, when he
helped organize a network of Roanoke County houses in which to raise
marijuana - a scheme that supplied Southwest Virginia with thousands
of pounds of potent, high-quality pot called Phototron, so named for
the high-powered lights used to grow the plants.

The self-described commodities broker knew he was breaking the law,
but insists he was so naive about his activities that if arrested, "I
thought it would be a problem like a speeding ticket problem."

Some speeding ticket.

Despite his pleas of ignorance, Smith was linked to the cultivation of
almost 30,000 pot plants and was sentenced Friday in U.S. District
Court in Roanoke to 200 months in prison, or 16 1/2 years, a fate the
free-living 44-year-old and father of four viewed as a death sentence.

So far, Smith's is the most severe punishment among his five
co-conspirators - Wallace "Chip" Mayhew, married to Smith's wife's
sister; Smith's half-brother Russell "Sam" Coles; Coles' cousins,
Martin D. Coles and F. Cameron Carroll; and Sybil Barrett-Alderman - a
well-educated, countercultural lot who formed the region's biggest
marijuana ring of the 1990s.

During much of the conspiracy, Smith was behind bars serving a
62-month federal sentence for a 1995 marijuana conviction stemming
from other grow houses.

But those whom he'd taught the trade before his August 1996
imprisonment kept busy growing pot after he was locked up. When
Roanoke County police busted three more grow houses in 1997,
discovering 2,300 marijuana plants being tended by Mayhew and the
others, Smith again got caught up in the plot.

During Smith's sentencing, which began Thursday, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Joe Mott argued Smith maintained control of the ring from
prison, parlaying his horticultural expertise for monthly franchise
fees from his cohorts. He used code words for them, and what turned
out to be six grow houses, when talking on the prison phone and
scheming to thwart the government's "evil plans."

Smith and his attorney, Robert Rider, dismissed as ridiculous the idea
that Smith could rule the ring from a federal prison. He's had no
communication with Carroll or Martin Coles since he went to prison,
they argued, and the "franchise fees" amounted to only $6,000 over 10
months, nothing more than canteen and phone money.

But because he did much of his instruction while out on bond awaiting
his 1995 trial - during which he also sold 50 to 80 pounds of
marijuana - Judge Samuel Wilson doubled the sentence he ordinarily
would have imposed.

Everyone deserves second chances, Wilson said. "Unfortunately, I have
felt you have left me with little or no alternative."

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Smith faced a minimum 27 years in
prison, but was given a break for his willingness to testify against
the others. His co-defendants labeled him a snitch, though Mott said
Friday that the evidence against them, coupled with Mayhew's extensive
cooperation, assured their convictions.

At his sentencing Thursday, Mayhew, 42, described himself as a
desperate man when Smith first mentioned joining his marijuana
business. Smith had driven him blindfolded to a grow house on Starkey
Road where, upon opening his eyes and seeing rows and rows of plants,
"I started trembling, almost uncontrollably. I said, 'Man, you got to
get me out of here.'"

Eventually, he agreed: "We was struggling and I saw it as a chance to
provide a better life for my family."

His wife and stepdaughters left him, though, when he chose to help
authorities prosecute the others. His cooperation earned him a break
Thursday from prosecutors and the judge - 12 months in prison for the
6,900 plants attributed to him, well below the guideline range of 46
to 57 months.

But the whole ordeal, he admitted, "cost me my life,
basically."

Barrett-Alderman, 25, once a nanny to Smith's four children, said
Thursday at her sentencing that Smith enchanted her with trips to Peru
and the Virgin Islands - jaunts, Judge Wilson noted, financed by drug
money.

She helped tend 902 plants at a grow house on Airview Drive at Smith's
behest, she claimed. Described by Mott as the least culpable, she was
given probation and 12 months community confinement, during which she
can't leave the area.

As for the rest, punishment rested on the number of plants they knew
about - a contentious task considering the figure was theoretical ,
extrapolated from the number of plants per grow light per number of
two-month grow cycles in each of the six houses.

For example, authorities theorized Russell and Martin Coles knew that
a Bent Mountain grow house had operated from June 1992 to November
1994, yielding 15 grow cycles for a total of 9,720 plants. But the
cousins countered they got involved with that house in early 1994, and
knew only of four grow cycles totaling 2,592 plants.

In the end, Wilson held Martin Coles accountable for about 10,000
plants and sentenced him to 70 months in prison.

Carroll was linked to 6,590 plants and Russell Coles - considered a
co-leader with Smith - was linked to more than 10,000 plants and faces
168 to 210 months in prison. Their punishment was postponed until next
month to give their attorneys time to track down more mitigating
evidence, which could lower their sentence.