Deputies Find 2,000 Marijuana Plants in House; 3 People Held

In the second such discovery in Los Angeles this year, sheriff’s deputies Wednesday raided a house that had been converted for indoor marijuana growing, taking into custody three people, including a couple arrested in 1993 on charges of running what was then biggest such indoor pot plantation in state history.

Sheriff’s Department narcotics detectives netted more than 2,000 high-grade plants believed to be worth about $20 million on the street, authorities said.

In July, sheriff’s detectives seized 4,116 marijuana plants worth an estimated $20 million growing in a Bel-Air mansion occupied by medical marijuana-activist Todd McCormick. Detectives said the Chatsworth house appeared to have no connection to McCormick or any medical marijuana group.

Each room in the 4,000-square-foot, six-bedroom house in the 23300 block of Needles Street was packed with marijuana plants, from inch-high seedlings to stalks five feet tall.

Water was pumped through hoses and pipes through hallways and up stairs. Plant-growing lights heated the rooms to as much as 100 degrees, and fans circulated air among the marijuana leaves.

The lights and irrigation system operated on timers and about a dozen transformers boosted the house’s electrical power supply. In the bathrooms stood 55-gallon barrels of chemical fertilizer.

There was no sign that anyone lived in the house, which contained no furniture or personal items.

Arrested on suspicion of cultivating marijuana and possessing marijuana for sale were Victor and Linda Dejoria, both 54, at their residence, a mobile home on Woosley Canyon Road in Canoga Park.

The Dejorias, deputies said, were arrested in 1993 on charges of growing 1,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated $1 million at their home in Malibu, in what at the time was the largest such seizure in state history. Victor Dejoria was convicted and sentenced to a jail term, deputies said.

Authorities on Wednesday also arrested Wayne Iannola, 35, as he drove away from the Chatsworth house in his pickup truck about 4:10 p.m., shortly before the raid was scheduled to begin, deputies said.

He and the Dejorias were taken to the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station jail, said Capt. Al Scaduto of the sheriff’s Narcotics Bureau. Bail is expected to be set at $500,000 each, authorities said.

“They were very good at what they were doing,” Scaduto said. “By the size of the plants, they were doing it for a while.”

The house contained mature plants capable of producing two pounds of marijuana each that could be sold for about $5,000 a pound, he said.

Detectives said the customers who buy from alleged drug sellers such as the Dejorias are professionals who know the difference between the high-grade marijuana and the cheaper variety more readily found on the streets.

“It’s too expensive for kids to buy, way too expensive,” said one investigator, who asked not to be identified. “It’s doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers--people with money.”

Along with the Chatsworth house, a home in Northridge, another in Agua Dulce and the Dejorias’ Woolsey Canyon home were raided.

Detectives found more than $80,000 in cash and several pounds of drying marijuana at a house in the 17200 block of Devonshire Street in Northridge, about 100 plants in a house in the 11800 block of Sierra Highway in Agua Dulce and more drying marijuana at the Dejorias’ mobile home, Scaduto said.

Detectives were searching for a fourth person, who they said had lived at the Agua Dulce residence.

The Dejorias owned the Chatsworth house, which they originally bought in partnership with Iannola before buying out his interest in January of this year, county property records show.

Unlike the Bel-Air mansion, where plants were visible through the windows from neighboring yards, the windows in the Chatsworth house were covered by plastic.