5 County Men Indicted in Marijuana Farming Case

Five Orange County men have been indicted along with three others for allegedly running a “well-organized . . . criminal enterprise” that financed and cultivated a major marijuana plantation in Northern California, federal and state law authorities announced Wednesday.

The indictments ended a yearlong investigation that began after the seizure last July of thousands of marijuana plants, worth millions of dollars, growing in a place called Keno Camp in a remote area of Trinity County, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp announced at a press conference in Sacramento.

It was the first case of a large-scale marijuana “cooperative” cracked by the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a coalition of 105 federal, state and local agencies that work to eradicate marijuana cultivation in California. Van de Kamp announced the indictments to launch CAMP’s 1987 campaign.

Indictment Ordered Sealed

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the two-count indictment was returned June 5 by the federal grand jury sitting in Sacramento but was ordered sealed until the defendants were arrested. Six of the eight men were arrested or turned themselves in within the last week, and all have pleaded innocent, authorities said. Two men remain fugitives.

Louis Joseph Bonacci, 57, was arrested in his San Clemente home last Thursday, and his son, Richard Gene Bonacci, 32, also of San Clemente, turned himself in to federal authorities in Sacramento the next day, said Kristin Sudhoff Door, assistant U.S. attorney in Sacramento.

Carl John Russo Sr., 56, was arrested in his Laguna Niguel home on June 25, and his son, Carl John Russo Jr., 33, turned himself in to authorities in Sacramento on Monday, Door said.

The fifth Orange County man, Ignacio Barrazza, 26, of Santa Ana, remains at large, as does Anthony Phillip Caronna, 40, of Covina, she said.

Also arrested were Anthony Joseph Matano, 52, of Redding and Ronald John Caiello, 52, of Arcadia.

Trial Scheduled Aug. 10

The elder Bonacci and the two Russos have been released on $50,000 bail, said U.S. Atty. David F. Levi in Sacramento. The younger Bonacci and Matano have been released on $100,000 bail, he said. Caiello was ordered detained without bail but has another hearing scheduled for today.

In telephone interviews, state and federal officials said they could not reveal details about how they believe the group operated the marijuana plantation because it could jeopardize their case. Trial is set for Aug. 10 in Sacramento before U.S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia.

However, Levi said the younger Bonacci originally was arrested July 3, 1986--the day authorities discovered the marijuana plantation--at the site. He was rearrested last week, after the federal indictment was handed down.

It took a year to produce the indictments, Levi said, because “to pull together an investigation of this sort required a lot of legwork . . . sifting through evidence, collecting bank records, interviewing shopkeepers, getting motel records and checking out purchases of equipment.”

Levi added that Caronna and Caiello were also arrested Dec. 31 by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on separate drug charges for allegedly participating in a seven-kilo (about 15 pounds) cocaine transaction there.

Jack Beecham, commander of Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, said cracking the Orange County-led enterprise was the first “major case” involving a marijuana “cooperative” since CAMP’s inception in 1983.

“We don’t think this case is unusual,” Beecham said. Up until now, CAMP has worked with local officials to eradicate smaller marijuana cultivation activities, he said. But now CAMP is targeting the larger cases involving the cooperative efforts of several people, who often are not from the region where the marijuana is being grown, he said.

The coalition is especially interested in an area of Northern California called the “Emerald Triangle,” composed of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties. The triangle is sparsely populated, and the climate is right for growing marijuana, he said.

“We feel there are many of these groups operational in that area,” Beecham said. “We see more of them (arrests) coming.”

It is significant, he said, that this case involves an “outside group.” Although many people think of marijuana cultivators as “the so-called mom-and-pop growers, we’ve maintained this (Emerald Triangle) area is being exploited by outsiders” running large-scale marijuana operations, he said.

The first count of the indictment charges that from September, 1985, to December, 1986, each of the defendants conspired to grow and distribute marijuana. The second count charges that the defendants actually grew marijuana from March to July, 1986.

Each defendant, if convicted, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

On July 3, 1986, law enforcement agents from the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department, as part of the CAMP program, located and eradicated 2,500 plants in the Keno Camp area of that county, Levi said. The plantation was located in a remote area and was divided into about 90 plots, he said.

Although the Keno Camp plants were immature at the time of seizure, the value of 2,500 mature marijuana plants is more than $8 million, authorities said.

In announcing the Orange County case Wednesday, Van de Kamp said “there will be no letup in the effort to find and destroy today’s smaller, less profitable patches.” For the next three months, until the end of the harvest season in September, more than 100 law enforcement agencies will exert added pressure to locate and eradicate marijuana crops, he said.

The Keno Camp case points out, Van de Kamp said, that while some people claim marijuana is produced by small, local farmers who grow a few pot plants on the side, marijuana production is really the business of “large, well-organized drug rings from all over the state.”

“It was the influx of criminals from outside the Emerald Triangle region that inspired me to create CAMP in 1983. Large sections of the state were almost beyond the reach of the law at that time. Indeed, tiny Humboldt County had the grisly distinction of suffering the highest murder rate in California,” he said.

During CAMP’s four years, he said, authorities have seized more than 1,200 firearms and dozens of lethal booby traps.

“When you look at a case like this one, it’s not difficult to understand how the situation got out of hand,” Van de Kamp said. “Keno Camp was anything but an operation of small local farmers. It was conceived, financed and run by a tightly organized group in Orange County, at least two of whom are now facing charges of trafficking in cocaine. Law enforcement professionals know that there is often no neat boundary between those who deal in marijuana and those dealing in cocaine and other drugs.”

In the past four years, he said, CAMP has seized more than 2.5 million pounds of high-grade sensimilla, or marijuana, worth as much as $1.2 billion on the wholesale market. (Sensimilla is a potent variety of marijuana.) The coalition has cleared marijuana plants from 2,300 sites and arrested more than 750 growers, he said.