[Endur]

Sutter tomato growers face 10 years for marijuana cultivation

Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/02/374...#ixzz1R753Nt36



Two decades ago, on a rice farm seemingly lost beyond the cattails and wild blackberries of rural Sutter County, Thomas and David Jopson took an audacious risk.

The fourth-generation farmers, sons of the local fire chief, erected a row of greenhouses. With innovation and hard work, they earned a national reputation for producing premium tomatoes that retailed for more than $4 a pound.

Now the brothers may face 10 years in federal prison after they undertook an even more ambitious project – growing pot.

Thomas Jopson, 62, and David, 60, were indicted this week along with 10 other people after authorities seized 2,168 marijuana plants at the family ranch June 21. Another 3,305 plants were found at a Sacramento County greenhouse allegedly tied to the brothers' purported partner – Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur Yan Ebyam.

Ebyam, 34, whose last name is "maybe" spelled backward and whose first name stands for "yes and no," once ran a teeming pot-growing operation that proved even too brazen for Oakland, the city renowned as the political center of California's medical marijuana movement.

The urban pot grower would later seek out the two Sutter County brothers just as they were looking to retire after a weak economy hurt supermarket demand for their designer produce.

Thomas Jopson's attorney, Michael Chastaine, said the brothers wanted to sell the farm and its greenhouses "because the market for good tomatoes just kind of bottomed." He said the Oakland man pitched what the brothers saw as a legal money-making opportunity.

"My client honestly felt that what they were doing was complying with the law," Chastaine said. "He certainly wasn't acting in any way as someone who felt that what they were doing was illegal."

Ebyam's attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Matthew M. Scoble, declined comment.

An affidavit by a U.S. Drug Enforcement agent suggested the Jopsons apparently felt so safe about the pot-growing operation under California's medical marijuana law that they invited a sheriff's deputy to tour their greenhouses. They even inquired about getting increased patrols.

DEA agent Robert Marchi said Thomas Jopson told the Sutter deputy they hoped to harvest six annual marijuana crops worth $24 million. David Jopson gave a more modest estimate of $8 million from four grow cycles – with the brothers collecting four $150,000 payments a year.

"Dave Jopson stated he and his brother were expecting to make enough money from the cultivation of marijuana to lead the good life" in retirement, Marchi wrote.

Pushed limits in Oakland

In agricultural circles, the farmers earned such acclaim with tomatoes they were profiled in trade publications for their bold hydroponics venture.

"Tom Jopson has no regrets about becoming a greenhouse grower, and wishes anyone who makes a similar move all the success in the world," said a 2008 story in Growing Produce magazine. "But he has some words of warning. It's not for the faint of heart."

Apparently for the Jopsons, and their partner, Ebyan, neither was marijuana.

A fast-talking businessman in his early 30s, Ebyan was a phenomenon in Oakland.

He had served prison time for money laundering in the sale of $6 million in stolen Cisco and Sun Microsystems computer equipment. And yet he helped create what city officials once thought was a model for large-scale medical marijuana cultivation.

In a warehouse in east Oakland, Ebyam and his associates spent $500,000 on lighting and electrical upgrades to outfit a 40,000-square-foot marijuana cultivation center.

Ebyam then signed a headline-grabbing contract with the Teamsters, paying unionized pot workers $25-an-hour, plus benefits. He supplied product to medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

"The scale and scope of that activity was aggressively pushing state and local law to the limit," said Oakland attorney James Anthony, who represents medical marijuana enterprises. "But it was what Oakland was contemplating."

The city was planning to issue four permits for massive marijuana cultivation warehouses, and levying a tax of of up to 10 percent on sales.

Oakland's plans collapsed after California voters last year rejected Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use, and federal authorities said they wouldn't tolerate large-scale medical pot growing either.

Later, Oakland refused to grant Ebyam the final building permits to sustain his cannabis venture. It went out of business, and he wound up in litigation with his partners – and looking for new chances.

Brothers' friend stunned

In the Sutter hamlet of Rio Oso, James Barker, a family friend of the Jopsons, who runs the East Nicolaus Market a few miles from their farm, said the brothers told him they were out of the tomato business and working on a "research and development" project.

Barker thought they were using their greenhouse for genetic crop engineering, not growing marijuana.

"They are respected, upstanding people in this community," he said. "They were misled by somebody who had to have been manipulating them … . I've just been sick about this ever since."

While marijuana is illegal under federal law, Mike Hudson, commander of a Yuba and Sutter county narcotics task force, said the pot farm didn't appear to follow state medical marijuana law. The state allows medicinal cannabis users to grow and share their crops in closed networks of marijuana patients.

"I'm only assuming they were going to provide it to dispensaries somewhere," Hudson said of the Jopsons' pot operation. "They claimed they had a list of patients. However, we did not see that."

Chastaine said Thomas Jopson had no reason "to go out and break the law." He said the brothers, who leased their greenhouses but didn't grow the marijuana, wouldn't have risked farm property worth millions of dollars unless they thought it was legal.

According to the federal affidavit, an alleged investor in the project, Aimee Sisco, 30, told authorities she was taken advantage of by Ebyam. She said he moved healthy marijuana plants to greenhouses in Sacramento County, leaving her with hundreds of plants on the Jopson farm that had to be destroyed due to mold.

The Jopsons, who were arrested June 21, are free after posting bonds of $100,000. With Ebyam, Sisco and eight others, they face federal charges of conspiracy and manufacturing at least 1,000 marijuana plants – a number that can trigger 10 years in prison.

In Sutter County, rancher Jess Schrum said he figured the Jopsons had a "sweet deal" selling designer tomatoes and wondered why they would contemplate marijuana. The locals "never would have expected anything like this," he said. "It's just weird. That's all I can say."

lol@ eBYAM, "Ebyam its a bad idea to grow 3k plants with no patient lists, a visit from the AED is elbissop"

[Kushed_]

I know these guys, they are in my backyard. Pretty accurate report Endur!

[CoCo_Crazy]

2,168 marijuana plants.......

Dammit

Thats one HELL of a lot of work!

[Headbandf1]

is that the Hothouse tomato company?

Yeah these are the Jopson hothouse tomato guys... Amazing since they were so implanted in the local marlets... way better than the other tomatos at the store but still not close to a home grown for taste. Just another example of how screwed the economy is that Jopson tomatoes market dried up. They were expensive so there ya go.

[Slangheat]

Man... i just don't buy it personally. I don't think what they did was "wrong" - but the amount of risk was just not a smart thing to get involved in...

Each of us would have known what we were doing - when this story broke (I'm local to this) the local paper said that in the brother's own words, they "wanted to live the good life."

They went too big, and it's not that I disagree with what they did - but it's obvious to anyone that you're asking for trouble if you go that large. With what they had on the line, I just can't see how they would be dumb enough to let some fast-talkin young 30 somethin swindle them. It's sad, it is, but they took a huge risk and had to know what they were doing.

Hope they get off, and that this serves as an example for the rest of us to do our best to dot our i's, cross our t's, and watch our backs.. Heartfelt prayers are going out to the Jopsons and their family who is now caught up in this with them.

[Headbandf1]

meanwhile, in the central valley the f'Ing dispemceries are trying to make move to become For profit businesses, because they're making so much cash hand over fist that they're having difficulting spending all their loot on employees and upgrading their facility. but none are putting the money back into truly help the community they exist in.

[gaiusmarius]

LOL too funny when i hear the same propaganda here like i would on a government web site.

it's the law that makes this situation the way it is, has nothing to do with criminals. it's the laws of supply and demand in an illegal market. further more how do you think 90% of smokers are supposed to get high? maybe Mexican cartel weed is better?

personally i'd take my weed from a local grown operation any day before i support the real criminals which are the cartels. not those that do things above board and in the open thinking they are legal. it's the crummy prohibitionist laws that cause this whole situation, not the people who are just making the best of things. i mean really where would we be if there were no big indoor grows being run by people that actually know what they are doing and care about getting the best possible end product, which more and more are doing now, so don't tell me they are abusing the law, no the law is abusing them in this instance, they should make it even easier to grow big, only then will prices come down and legitimate business practices be the norm. as long as things are as they are we have to be glad when actual good growers do it big.