ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996 TAG: 9605170070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
When police began making arrests in the "Phototron" indoor marijuana-growing case in December 1994, they found grow lights, notebooks with growing instructions, plant pots and soil.
What they didn't find - except in one house - were plants.
The defendants have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to grow and sell pot, but the government and the defense continue to argue in Roanoke federal court over the amount involved. Four of the growers were sentenced Thursday, receiving from 18 months to more than five years in prison.
Participants in the operation cultivated marijuana in 13 grow houses starting in the late 1980s, although testimony at the sentencings described a loose-knit group less organized and profitable than first was alleged.
Victor Layman, the Roanoke County real estate agent first known to police only as the "Phototron man," explained on the witness stand how he began trying to grow pot in the mid-1980s. It was about the same time he began growing and crossbreeding irises.
It took a number of years and several attempts in different "grow houses" to make it profitable, he said. At first, he was trying to keep his real estate school afloat, saying, "My goal was not to be in the marijuana business."
He kept a daily log, treating his two Roanoke County grow houses as a "laboratory" as he crossed different strains of plants to get the best-quality pot he could in the shortest growing period. He also helped others set up grow houses.
"I don't feel I learned how to grow marijuana well until the last couple years," Layman said. "I got carried away, and I'm sorry. I really regret the decision I've made."
"He's the closest thing we've seen to a genius at the hybridization of these plants," said his attorney, Tony Anderson. "He took that ability farther than he should have, to the realm of the illegal, or unlawful."
U.S. District Judge James Turk held Layman responsible for between 80 and 100 kilograms of marijuana - 175 to 220 pounds. Turk sentenced him to 57 months in prison as a courtroom crowded with friends and family grimly looked on. Even his attorney broke down as he spoke of how Layman "has a lot to give" to society.
Joseph "Jay" Smith III was sentenced to 62 months after Turk ruled that he also was responsible for between 80 and 100 kilos. Smith's sentence was increased for obstruction of justice. He was caught trying to clean out and hide evidence at one of Layman's grow houses after Layman was arrested in December 1994.
Smith's attorney, Jonathan Rogers, urged Turk to "minimalize the harm" and consider the rationale of punishing people over marijuana. He handed the judge a copy of a February article from the conservative National Review, titled "The war on drugs is lost."
"I say this, not that this court has any power to change the law, because I know it doesn't, " Rogers said. But marijuana criminalization is "incorrect law."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott argued that Smith grew marijuana to make money, not because he's a "knight in the forefront of the war on drugs." He said Smith had stonewalled investigators rather than cooperate and that the government never found any of his assets or learned to whom he sold his marijuana.
"I'm mainly sorry for the harm it has caused my family," Smith told Turk. "I obviously underestimated the seriousness of this, and I am sorry."
Bob Christenson, who had stopped growing marijuana a year before police began arresting participants, was sentenced to 18 months after Turk found him responsible for at least 20 to 40 kilos. Christenson grew marijuana in a house in Boones Mill as well as at a business on Williamson Road in Roanoke. Layman said Christenson probably was the least successful of the growers, and was burglarized repeatedly.
Majid Khoshghad of Rocky Mount was sentenced to 34 months in prison. A house he owned on Poor Mountain Road in Roanoke County was the only one where police found marijuana plants. He testified Thursday that the 750 plants were Layman's, to whom he said he leased the house.
Layman reluctantly testified against his friend under subpoena, saying the grow operation belonged to Khoshghad and that he occasionally bought marijuana from him.
The range for Khoshghad's sentence under federal guidelines was 30 to 37 months.
"When I came in here this morning, I had intended to give you the minimum," Turk told Khoshghad. "I don't think you've been truthful, so I'm going to add on four months."
The defendants argued that the crop estimates by the government and the probation officers, who prepared the pre-sentence reports for the judge, were too high. Fungus and bugs killed many plants, and the operation wasn't consistently turning out huge crops, attorneys argued.
Three other defendants in the case are to be sentenced today.
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