Marijuana farm suspects armed and ready to run
By CYNDY COLE
Sun Staff Reporter
08/17/2005

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/na...storyID=113805

Four illegal Mexican immigrants arrested in a Monday raid on a large marijuana farm near Strawberry have been booked into Coconino County jail, one seen guarding the crop with an assault rifle, another taken down by a police dog when he ran.

Two said they were working on the crop for pay, one to cancel the debt on his passage into the U.S. Another said he was just camping with friends when confronted during Monday's bust and subsequent interrogations.

The four appeared in Flagstaff Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark E. Aspey for an initial hearing on criminal complaints of manufacturing marijuana in what law enforcement officials say may be one of the largest pot busts in history.

Previous record busts elsewhere in the country have found up to

80,000 plants each worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Each listened through a translator to the complaints against him and for his options regarding deportation.

Law enforcement officers spotted Jesus Castillo Melendres, Gerardo Manzo Pulido, Oscar Nunez Medina and David Valencia Gonzalez tending or guarding marijuana plants in Calf Pen Canyon of Fossil Springs Wilderness during surveillance over the last six weeks, according to court documents.

Medina was wearing camouflage during earlier sightings and had what appeared to be an assault rifle, possibly an AK-47, slung over his shoulder. He had a full ammo clip and dozens of 7.62mm Russian-made bullets in his pockets and in a pack on his back when he was arrested, according to court documents.

He is being charged with breaking laws that say those who immigrate illegally can't carry ammunition.

Pulido had pistol on his hip to guard the marijuana plants, but no ammunition, according to court documents.

Law enforcement officials at the Arizona Department of Public Safety fear the suspects caught so far may be only the worker bees in a drug cartel with far more powerful leaders.

The covert marijuana farm had yet to be secured as of Monday, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Two of the men arrested Monday left as police moved in but stopped later on command.

Gonzalez kept running and was taken down and injured by a police dog. He was held in a Payson hospital Monday and released for a Tuesday court appearance. He was wheeled in and out of the court room on an office chair and wrapped in a hospital gown, though he was able to walk outside of the courthouse.

When confronted by police in Monday's bust, Medina said he had been camping in the woods with his friends. Officers told him during interrogations Monday at the Coconino National Forest office that they'd seen him tending marijuana.

The other three each said they'd been growing marijuana for harvest and getting paid $200 per day, $100 per week, or, in Gonzalez' case, working off the outstanding bill to repay the smuggler who brought him into the United States.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix is running the investigation and has declined to release other information about the case or how much marijuana was obtained. A press conference has been scheduled for Thursday.

This is the first bust on the Coconino National Forest this year, Coconino National Forest Spokeswoman Raquel Poturalski said. Five pot crops on the Tonto National Forest just to the south have been busted so far this year, yielding more than 83,000 plants.

Cyndy Cole can be reached at ccole@azdailysun.com or at 913-8607.