Final two sentenced for running marijuana grow operation
The final two of four people convicted of federal charges for running a marijuana grow operation were sentenced last week during U.S. District Court proceedings in Missoula.
Christopher Durbin, 33, a Whitefish and Oregon resident, was sentenced to seven years in prison and five years of probation, and was ordered to pay a special assessment of $200 after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana and structuring.
Structuring is when a person executes financial transactions in a calculated way to avoid the creation of legally required records and reports.
Trey Scales, 33, Whitefish, was sentenced to nine months in prison, six months of house arrest and four years of probation, and was ordered to pay a special assessment of $100 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.
According to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice, from September 2010 through mid-March 2011, Durbin and Scales, along with Aaron Durbin and Justin Maddock, were involved in marijuana-growing operations.
Christopher Durbin owned and operated several businesses, including Four Seasons Gardening, in the Flathead Valley.
Located next to Four Seasons were two other businesses, Northern Lights Medical and Good Medicine Providers. Northern Lights Medical allowed people to apply for Montana medical marijuana cards while Good Medicine was a dispensary.
Investigators discovered he was distributing large amounts of marijuana to people both inside and outside of Montana. A confidential source would have testified to traveling to New York twice to pick up roughly $50,000 in cash after marijuana was delivered there at Christopher Durbin’s request.
Aaron Durbin had assisted in turning a warehouse on U.S. 93 into a large marijuana grow facility to supply Good Medicine. Maddock operated a large warehouse marijuana grow operation on East Reserve Drive. A confidential source would have testified that they witnessed a marijuana transaction at Maddock’s home.
Scales provided a confidential source with one pound of marijuana on one occasion and five pounds on another occasion. That source also witnessed Scales provide 10 pounds of marijuana to another person.
A search of Scales’ residence in Whitefish turned up 43 marijuana plants. A search of the grow operations located more than 1,000 marijuana plants.
Christopher Durbin was the head of the distribution network, and was charged with structuring due to information collected that he deposited roughly $71,900 into a Glacier Bank account in 16 cash deposits ranging from $4,000 to $6,000. None of the deposits were large enough to trigger the bank’s currency transaction report requirements.
Aaron Durbin previously was sentenced to one year of house arrest and five years of probation and was ordered to pay a special assessment of $100 following his conviction on a charge of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.
Maddock previously was sentenced to six months in jail, three months of house arrest and three years of probation and was ordered to pay a special assessment of $100 following his conviction on a charge of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.