CONVICTIONS COME IN 75 PERCENT OF GROW-HOUSE CASES

SEBRING - Highlands County Sheriff's Office deputies did not find
marijuana plants inside a grow house but, instead, buried in five
three-foot deep shallow graves.

Capt. Randy LaBelle, with the sheriff's office's drug unit, said
deputies had attempted a "knock-and-talk" on the River Drive residence
in August 2007.

"There was nothing in this house," he said. "Nothing."

Rather, deputies discovered freshly disturbed dirt in a back field
behind the home. Using shovels and elbow grease, the authorities
discovered the graves and the marijuana.

"That marijuana stunk," LaBelle said. "It was soaking wet, it was
decomposing."

Deputies found 102 plants, which weighed 77.5 pounds, according to an
offense report. The defendant, Yoel Suarez, received three years
probation for trafficking in marijuana.

It was one of 79 grow-house cases that deputies have busted over the
past two years involving more than 90 defendants.

About 59 of those cases have since been closed, with nine of them
moving to federal prosecution, according to Mike Durham, the sheriff's
office attorney.

The others were closed after pleas were entered, or because no arrests
were made since some of the houses were abandoned.

"From what I was seeing, a lot of these people got probation (or)
community control," LaBelle said. "There were some prison sentences in
a few of them."

He added that most of the defendants in the grow-house cases have ties
to Miami-Dade County and are predominantly Cuban.

Many have transferred back to Miami-Dade County, LaBelle said,
although some are still in Highlands County.

"We've seen the majority of their houses foreclosed on," he
said.

Durham said 20 of the grow-house cases are still open.

"Twelve of those are newer grow house cases where the cannabis has
been dried in a drying system that was constructed by the sheriff's
office," he said.

LaBelle said those who have been arrested in the grow house cases are
lower level players.

"The big people, they're not even in this state," he said.