ELLSWORTH, Maine — A Trenton man was arrested Thursday on charges that he stole marijuana plants with a total value of more than $12,000 from a licensed medical marijuana grower, according to police.
Ellsworth police Lt. Harold Page said Friday that police have recovered the 17 plants and are trying to determine what to do with them, because as far as anyone can tell, this case is the first in the state in which plants have been stolen from a licensed medical marijuana grower.
Ellsworth police have communicated with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and are consulting with the Maine attorney general’s office to determine whether they have to return the plants to the licensed grower, he said. Page said the plants are still viable for medical marijuana users.
Part of the issue concerns federal law, which does not allow for medicinal uses of marijuana, Page said, so the department wants to make sure it does not commit any federal violations if it returns the stolen plants to the licensed grower. If police do not return the plants, he said, they will destroy them.
“This is new,” Page said. “No one’s dealt with this before.”
Aaron Pert, 32, came to the attention of local police early Thursday morning, shortly after midnight, when an officer pulled over a Jeep on Route 1A after the Jeep allegedly ran a stop sign, Page said Friday. The driver, Rachel Braun, 29, of Trenton, subsequently was charged with operating an unregistered motor vehicle while Pert, a passenger in the Jeep, was arrested on a charge of possession of a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle and summoned on a charge of marijuana possession.
According to Page, police noted that the relatively small amount of marijuana that Pert allegedly had with him during the traffic stop appeared to have been freshly harvested.
Later that morning, a licensed medical marijuana grower contacted police to report a burglary at his marijuana growing operation. Page declined to identify specifically where the operation is located and said only that it is in the Ellsworth area.
The grower told police that someone had entered two buildings on his property where he cultivates the plants and had taken 17 of them, according to Page. The grower told police the estimated total value of the plants is $12,800.
After Pert had been released from jail on the firearm possession charge, police went later Thursday to a Trenton motel where Braun and Pert have been staying and questioned him about the burglary. Pert eventually told police he had taken the plants and stashed them in the woods in northern Ellsworth, Page said. The lieutenant declined to say where police recovered the plants.
Pert was arrested again, this time on a charge of burglary and theft. Braun has not been charged in connection with the alleged burglary or theft of the marijuana plants, Page said.
By Friday morning, Pert had been released again from Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth on $500 unsecured bail, according to police and jail officials.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
similar case in california,police were called to a home where plants had been spotted growing through a window, No one was home.cops went in and confiscated them then destroyed them .it turns out the home owner was licensed to grow them.i believe the city settled for something like $ 20,000 if i recall,could have been more.
Perhaps the police could leave them in front of the grower’s establishment and walk away.
17 plants are worth $12,000? Woah, thats crazy
If the prohibition on cannabis is lifted, free market economics will take over and growing weed will be undertaken by millions of people. The price will then plummet.
Why is the government spending so much keeping this herb illegal?
Who is getting rich?
When you get licesed to grow “legal” pot and sell to a “legal” dispensory the profits are great!
For goodness sake, give the man back his plants and stop making a mountain out of a molehill. The grower did nothing wrong and deserves to get his property back.
yes, give the man back his pants for goodness sakes!
This is so crazy….the cops are supposed to bust those that grow pot….. oh wait…. then they are supposed to protect those that legally grow pot…….? How confusing is that to the general public???? I know there are laws to be considered here, but how stupid is all this????? A great amount of money spent to catch the outlaws “illegal pot growers”, and then money spent to “protect” legal growers??? Come on! this is STUPID, and a waste of tax payer money. The legal system needs to make up its mind. Either pass a law saying its ok to cultivate and smoke dope, or pass a law saying it is illegal, and unacceptable. Personally, I do not want to meet some pot-head driving down the road, higher than a kite and in touch with the cosmos… he might easily kill my family while in his happy euphoria…..and then I am am going to be the criminal…..JustSayin!
Aaron, ya lazy bum, grow your own dope.
I would think the city police would and should follow state law. If they aren’t going after all the legal growers and prosecuting them, as federal law states, then they should give the legal grower back his plants. It should be legalize anyway. The pills doctors are doling out and the methadone and suboxone on the streets are the problem not the pot. Have never used it myself but have seen the effects of alcohol, pills and pot on friends and family members and would choose to be around someone smoking pot and laughing themselves to sleep in a bed of twinkies before being around people on any of the other substances. Time for some common sense…
Why is this mans name in the paper?
I hope that a cancer patient or someone with a spinal cord injury doesn’t have to suffer because of this man. He should be ashamed of himself.
The police need to follow State Law and return these plants to the Legal grower. This is putting the health of his patients at risk…..