'HOLLYWOOD SET' MASKED POT-GROWING OPERATION

EUREKA, Calif. - A marijuana factory so well-disguised it looked like a
family's country dream house, complete with flowers in the yard, was
actually home to thousands of pot plants.

The flowers turned out to be fake - and so did a lot of other things,
according to Humboldt County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Knight.

"By the time we got through, we felt like we had wandered around a
Hollywood set," he said.

The ground level even had special windows that made it appear "you were
looking inside to a bathroom," Knight said.

He said last week's raid by local and federal drug agents uncovered an
indoor growing operation capable of producing an estimated $500,000 worth
of processed marijuana every month.

"It was like a sea of green inside," said Knight.

He said officers discovered 12,448 marijuana plants growing in a cluster of
four buildings on a heavily wooded site in a rural area of eastern Humboldt
County.

About 9,600 of the plants, ranging in size from a few inches to 3 feet
tall, were found behind the walls of a 4,000-square-foot building with a
facade that looked like a new house.

Agents found a marijuana nursery, drying room and numerous rooms containing
plants in varying stages of growth. The pot was being grown under 215
1,000-watt lights powered by a 125-kilowatt generator hidden in a nearby
creek bed.

Nearby was a double-wide mobile home. But Knight said that, too, was an
illusion. Inside, the interior had been gutted and replaced by a specially
designed marijuana growing room.

"It was a very sophisticated operation, set up to grow marijuana on a
continuous cycle year-round," Knight said.

Three people were booked for investigation of federal drug charges. If
convicted, Shaun Turner, 29; Lori Handy, 44, of Arcata; and Jeromy Shull,
23, of Eureka, could be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison and fined
up to $4 million each, Knight said.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski