Pubdate: Wed, 18 Mar 2009
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2009 The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm
Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Stephen Thompson, The Tampa Tribune
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

TRUCK AT HYDROPONICS STORE TRACED; POT RAIDED

Narcotics detective Michael Papamichael kept seeing the same black 
Ford F-150 pickup truck parked behind Simply Hydroponics, a business 
that sells grow lights, nutrients and other products designed for 
indoor agriculture.

Papamichael saw the truck five times between Jan. 6 and Feb. 19, 
according to court documents released last week, and that got the 
detective thinking. He checked to see who that truck belonged to, and 
where the driver might have set up an account with Progress Energy 
Corp. for electricity.

This is how the Pinellas sheriff's narcotics squad was led to a 
string of warehouses behind a U.S. 19 strip plaza this month. There 
they found 460 marijuana plants and more than $12,000 in cash, the 
court documents say.

Allan Bednar, co-owner of Simply Hydroponics, was taken aback when he 
heard Tuesday that detectives identified a suspect by jotting down 
the license tag of a truck presumably driven by one of his customers.

"If they don't have anything better to do, there's not much I can do 
about it," Bednar said. "I'm surprised ... it seems there are more 
problems around of a more serious nature."

Bednar wondered aloud whether the sheriff's office was exposing 
itself to potential lawsuits though the surveillance technique. 
"We're a gardening supply store," Bednar said. It caters to 
professors, students and teachers, as well as homeowners, and if 
detectives begin showing up at their doors, it could be considered 
harassment, he said.

The F-150 was registered to the man investigators initially believed 
was running the marijuana grow operation at the warehouses, the 
documents say. He is identified in the documents as Stephen E. 
Sweetwood, 51, of Seminole, the court records say.

The warehouses "" located behind the Four Seasons Plaza, 39070 U.S. 
19 N., Palm Harbor "" were raided March 9 after sheriff's narcotics 
investigators obtained a search warrant.

That day, authorities said a man had been taken into custody and was 
cooperating with them. They would not identify the man then and they 
are not doing so now. Pinellas sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda 
said Tuesday that no arrests have been made in the case, and the 
investigation is ongoing.

According to the affidavit accompanying the search warrant, however, 
the focus of the investigation, at least before the search, was Sweetwood.

Sweetwood became a target after his truck was spotted repeatedly at 
Simply Hydroponics at 7949 Ulmerton Road in Largo, the court records 
say. Investigators then looked to see where a power bill might be in 
Sweetwood's name, and they were told by Progress Energy Corp. that 
Sweetwood had an account for one of the warehouses behind the plaza, 
the affidavit says.

When Papamichael and another detective went to the warehouse complex, 
they found five air-conditioners mounted to an outside wall that were 
in operation the entire time the detectives were there, with a 
generated temperature of 44 degrees. They also smelled marijuana 
coming from the exhaust of four of the five air conditioning units, 
but the smell of marijuana was evident no where else outside, the 
affidavit says.

Detectives then found the four warehouse units that were emitting the 
smell of marijuana were not in Sweetwood's name, but rather in the 
name of Jeffrey G. McCubbins, 46, of Hudson, the affidavit says. The 
one air conditioning unit that was in Sweetwood's name was not 
emitting the smell of marijuana, the affidavit says.

The three warehouses for which detectives obtained their search 
warrant "" and which were using inordinate amounts of power "" had 
accounts for electricity in McCubbins' name, the affidavit says, and 
McCubbins had previously been suspected of distributing marijuana. 
Still, detectives noted that Sweetwood had access to one of the three 
warehouses, and he is "involved in the cultivation of marijuana 
within said warehouses," the affidavit says.

Efforts to reach Sweetwood and McCubbins were unsuccessful. Neither 
man has a listed telephone number.
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