March 27, 2009
Brandon Haught
Public Information Office

MARIJUANA GROWING OPERATION FOUND NEAR ORANGE CITY

Volusia County narcotics agents found 51 marijuana plants growing in three rooms of a home near Orange City during a raid Wednesday and arrested a 40-year-old man associated with the home the following day. The plants were between six and eight feet tall and all together weighed 493 pounds. They have an approximate street value $51,000.

Narcotics investigators conducted an investigation over the course of the past month and obtained a search warrant Wednesday signed by county court judge Peter Marshall. The West Volusia Narcotics Task Force and Volusia County Sheriff’s SWAT team executed the search warrant later that morning at 704 Lake Emerald Ave. Found inside were the six-foot high plants in three bedrooms. The marijuana grew in large blue pots among a host of growing equipment, such as special lights, fans, and fertilizer.

Also discovered was evidence that Jose Mena of Hialeah had been in the house. Late Thursday afternoon Mena turned himself in at the Sheriff’s Office’s Deltona district office. He admitted to growing the marijuana and was charged with trafficking in marijuana, cultivation of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach on $35,500 bond.

The West Volusia Narcotics Task Force is a multi-agency force of investigators from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and DeLand Police Department that shares resources and crosses jurisdictional boundaries to combat street-level drug and vice crimes.