Pubdate: Wed, 21 Apr 1999
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 1999 Mercury Center
Contact:  http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author: John Woolfolk, Mercury News Staff Writer

POLICE BELIEVE SEXUAL ASSAULT SUSPECT RAN OPERATION

A Santa Cruz man suspected in a peeping and sexual assault spree is facing
additional charges as alleged leader of a multimillion-dollar marijuana
operation, authorities said Tuesday.

Sheriff's investigators said William Warner Wilson, 37, oversaw an indoor
marijuana farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains where jump-suited employees grew
$100,000 worth of the illicit weed a month.

"This grow operation was without a doubt the most sophisticated we've ever
seen," said Santa Cruz County sheriff's detective Dan Campos. "It was a
factory."

Wilson was arrested at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at his rented home on Palmetta
Street in Santa Cruz on a warrant charging him with burglary and assault
with intent to commit rape. He also was booked on a charge of marijuana
possession for sale.

On Tuesday, Wilson appeared briefly in court for arraignment, but the
hearing was rescheduled for next Tuesday while he shops for a lawyer. He
remains in custody with bail set at $1.25 million.

The warrant charging sexual assault and burglary stemmed from a break-in
Feb. 2 on Buena Vista Avenue in which a woman in her 30s awoke to find a
stranger in her bedroom touching her. He fled when she confronted him, but
fingerprints left behind led police to Wilson.

The Buena Vista case was among a rash of sexual assault and prowling reports
in Santa Cruz's Seabright neighborhood so similar that police believe one
man is responsible.

When police searched Wilson's Palmetta Street home for evidence linking him
to those cases, they said they stumbled upon an unexpected and spectacular find.

Drawers and boxes were overflowing with piles of cash totaling nearly
$40,000, Campos said. There were two handguns, five rifles and marijuana
paraphernalia, he said. And there were documents and photographs indicating
a marijuana production operation at property Wilson owns in the mountains,
he said.

Police called in the sheriff's narcotics squad, which converged on Wilson's
20-acre hilltop spread off Branciforte Drive, about two miles past the
Mystery Spot. The property is enclosed by a 5-foot-tall chain-link fence
topped with electrified wire, with an electronic iron security gate blocking
entry.

Hidden from view at the top of a long driveway were two trailers, a propane
tank, utility trucks and a  1,500-square-foot wooden building with three
large dogs outside, Campos said.

Inside the wooden building, which had doors fortified by steel plates,
investigators found three rooms with 445 marijuana plants in various stages
of growth, Campos said.

"They were all high grade, and very potent," Campos said.

Investigators found trash cans filled with loose marijuana leaves and an
attic in which 30 pounds of buds were packaged in half-pound bags worth
$2,500 apiece, Campos said. Authorities have moved to seize Wilson's assets
and believe he may have buried some of his profits.

While raids elsewhere in the past have yielded more marijuana, local
investigators said they never saw anything so state of the art.

"The way this was set up was just brilliant," Campos said. "He's got it down
to a science. The place was alive with the sounds of generators and fans."

Each room in the building had 40 or more 1,000-watt lamps used to grow the
plants indoors, while a basement had vats filled with nutrient solutions,
Campos said.

A commercial-grade generator powered the operation, apparently so
authorities would not detect the high electricity use, Campos said.
Hydroponic equipment used to grow the plants was manufactured at an
on-site machine shop, apparently so it could not be traced from specialty
store purchases, he said.

Clipboards were filled with notes on care and feeding of the plants and
schedules, Campos said. Bookkeeping records indicated an operation dating
back nearly a decade and profits of $80,000 to $100,000 a month, he said.

Time cards showed there were a handful of employees who were paid $60 an
hour, he said. The workers evidently wore sterile jumpsuits, rubber gloves,
hard-hats and protective eye wear, and there was firefighting equipment
nearby as a precaution, he said.

Sheriff's officials said the operation was so cleverly concealed they may
never have found it.

"We always believed there were factories in the county like this," Campos
said. "But I don't know if we would have found this one had we not gotten
the information from Santa Cruz police. We got lucky."

The operation was so extensive that federal drug agents have taken over the
narcotics case, Campos said. Federal officials have not yet filed charges
against Wilson, and the case remains under investigation, he said.
Authorities are still trying to locate the employees, who signed their time
cards only by initial, he said. The
U.S. Attorney's office in San Jose did not return calls about the case.

Meanwhile, Santa Cruz police are still working to link Wilson to a host of
peeping, prowling and sexual assault reports. Police said the victim of the
most recent case, a March 15 peeping incident on Mott Avenue, has identified
Wilson, but no additional charges have been filed.

Wilson's mother and sister would not comment outside the courtroom Tuesday.
A family member who asked not to be identified, said Wilson does not
resemble the police sketch of the suspect in the March 15 case. The suspect
was identified as a man in his 20s with long blond hair, while Wilson is in
his 30s and has short blond hair.

Police are withholding booking photos of Wilson because they are still
asking victims if they can pick him out of photo lineups.

Wilson's neighbors in Santa Cruz and in the mountains described him as
secretive and said they were not surprised by the drug allegations.

"He was very solitary, very freewheeling," one neighbor said. "He clearly
had a lot of toys and no visible means of support."

The sex charges, however, left neighbors stunned.

"It blows my mind," a neighbor said.

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