POT BUST MAY YIELD PRIZE FOR SHERIFF

Coeymans-- Deputies will try to seize ATV after arresting Bethlehem
man for growing marijuana

The Albany County Sheriff's Department has wanted an all-terrain
vehicle to navigate woodedareas and fields during investigations.

They may have found one.

John L. Fuller, 26, of Bridge Street in Bethlehem, was arrested Sunday
when an undercover sheriff's investigator riding his personal ATV
spotted Fuller emerging from woods near Route 143 with 15 pounds of
marijuana stuffed in bags and strapped to his four-wheel ATV, police
said.

Investigators estimate the street value of the marijuana is
$30,000.

"The four-wheeler he was operating we confiscated and will attempt to
seize as part of the arrest,'' Sheriff James L. Campbell said. "We may
have a four-wheeler in the future.''

The undercover investigator, Carmen Frangella, was cruising under a
stretch of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. lines in an area of Coeymans
that Campbell said is well known by police for its marijuana crops.
The growers can be elusive, sometimes sneaking out to water their
crops sporadically, often at night, he said.

Normally, many police departments will simply yank the plants out of
the ground and destroy them. But Campbell said investigators stake out
large crops when they can, hoping to catch growers visiting or
harvesting their valued plants. Having an ATV would help, he said.

Fuller, a garbage-truck operator for All-American Sanitation Service,
was charged with first-degree criminal possession of marijuana, a
felony, and unlawfully growing marijuana without a license, a
misdemeanor. He was arraigned before Coeyman's town Justice Kevin
Reilly and sent to the Albany County Jail without bail.

Sheriff's investigators said Fuller told them he had been growing
marijuana outdoors in Bethlehem, Ravena, Coeymans and Selkirk the past
several years. The investigators said they traced Fuller's ATV tracks
into a swampy area and discovered a chicken-wire encased crop area
littered with water jugs and packets of the fertilizer Miracle-Gro,
and burlap bags containing bare marijuana stalks.

"We couldn't have gotten back in this wooded area without a
four-wheeler,'' Campbell said.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady