Five of the 11 defendants in a massive subterranean illegal marijuana operation in the San Bernardino County high desert have reached plea agreements with prosecutors while new arrests have been made of some of the outstanding suspects, according to authorities.
The five defendants who were in custody in May — Cheng Lin, 30, Wu Lin, 33, Qiaoyan Liu, 35, Zhonggui He, 60, and Mingfeng He, 35 — all reached plea agreements with San Bernardino County prosecutors and have been sentenced to varying terms of probation as well as imprisonment at county jail, San Bernardino County Superior Court records showed.
The five were arrested at various locations in May as a part of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Operation Hammer Strike, a unit attempting to thwart illegal marijuana cultivation in the High Desert and elsewhere in the county consisting of sheriff’s deputies and state Fish & Wildlife officers. On May 23, law enforcement announced charges filed in a 14,000-square-foot underground grow operation uncovered in Newberry Springs that used thousands of gallons of water on a daily basis to grow more than $4 million worth of unlicensed marijuana.
“We are satisfied with the pleas made, not only does it hold the defendants accountable for their actions and remediation of the property, but also the community will no longer be subjected to criminal activity, water theft or destruction of the environment,” said Jacquelyn Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
Four additional suspects all have been arrested and cited and are awaiting court dates, according to Mara Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department. However, it wasn’t immediately clear which of the remaining six suspects — Weijian Liu, 33, Aiqing Lin, 52, Wenren He, 42, Lijie Lin, 38, Bin Li, 38 and Huang Lin, 27 — were arrested or when or where they were taken into custody.
“We are proud of the continued efforts of our deputies who work every day to eradicate the illegal cannabis cultivation in our county,” Mara Rodriguez said. “We are also grateful for the relationship we have with our District Attorney’s Office and County Board of Supervisors, which has made the success of Operation Hammer Strike Possible.”
Wu Lin, Qiaoyan Liu and Zhonggui He all reached plea agreements on May 27, court records indicated.
Wu Lin and Qiaoyan Liu both pled guilty to cultivating more than six marijuana plants and being in possession of marijuana for sale, records showed. They were sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 180 days in county jail with work release eligibility, Superior Court records showed.
Zhonggui He pleaded guilty to two counts of cultivating more than six marijuana plants and being in possession of marijuana for sale, according to court records. He was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 100 days in county jail with work release eligibility, Superior Court records showed.
On June 7, Cheng Lin pleaded guilty to two counts of cultivating more than six marijuana plants and two counts of being in possession of marijuana for sale, court records indicated. He was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 240 days in county jail with work release eligibility, Superior Court records showed.
On June 9, Mingfeng He pleaded guilty to cultivating more than six marijuana plants and being in possession of marijuana for sale, court records showed. He was sentenced to one year of supervised probation and 45 days in county jail, court records indicated.
Each defendant will also pay an undisclosed amount of money for restitution, according to court records.
The county is also in the process of potentially seizing the five-acre Newberry Springs property in an attempt to re-sell it to the public. Most recently, the county was given a $170,000 estimate for remediation costs of the property, Jaquelyn Rodriguez said.
