
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 28, 1995                   TAG: 9507280098
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

POT RAID NETS 3 ARRESTS, 1,259 PLANTS

The Floyd County Sheriff's Office seized an estimated $1.2 million worth of marijuana plants Thursday outside a Copper Hill home.

Deputies arrested 45-year-old Peter Wallace Rendo, his son Jesse Cory Rendo, 20, and 23-year-old Kipp Fowler, half-brother of Jesse Rendo.

All three were charged with manufacture of marijuana.

Chief investigator Jerry Yopp said sheriff's deputies and officers from the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation raided the three men's home.

They were taken into custody without incident. Several weapons, some semiautomatic, also were confiscated, Yopp said.

The 1,259 marijuana plants, all starter plants ready to be transplanted, were valued at $1,000 each, Yopp said.

"It was a large bust," he said.

This is one of a few sizable busts in Floyd County in recent years including ones in 1990 and 1992. The July 1992 raid yielded 3,209 plants.

Yopp said the men had been under investigation, but he would not divulge any other information.

The men were held in the Floyd County Jail on $5,000 bond and remained in custody Thursday night.

by CNB