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From popular house to drug farm

An informer tells a jury how a noted home was transformed into a farm for cultivating marijuana.

By TIMES STAFF WRITER
Published August 20, 2006

LUTZ - A suburban house that was once the home of a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers lineman was in the news this past week.

After the football player sold the house and moved away, its new owner turned it into a hydroponic farm with nearly 100 marijuana plants, federal prosecutors said.

The large house at 18970 Crooked Lane, just south of Lutz's Oscar Cooler Youth Sports Complex, was once well-known in its neighborhood because it was the home of former Bucs offensive guard Kerry Jenkins.

Records show Jenkins bought the 3,250-square-foot house in July 2002 for $419,000 and, once he was no longer on the team, sold it in June 2005 for $549,000.

Its next owner had different plans for it, prosecutors say.

On Wednesday, an informer for the Drug Enforcement Agency walked a jury in U.S. District Court through how he and others planted a forbidden garden inside the house.

The informer, Harvey "Duke" Faglier, told jurors that by fall 2005 he helped create the marijuana house at the instruction of Herbert Ferrell Jr., who has been charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 marijuana plants.

Ferrell was one of 11 people arrested in what authorities called a multimillion-dollar marijuana growing operation in some of Tampa Bay's nicest neighborhoods.

Most of the other defendants pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Ferrell's trial began last Monday. It will continue this coming Monday.

In a meeting Faglier secretly recorded, Ferrell can be heard discussing the supplies needed to build a drug house.

On a recording played Wednesday, Ferrell could be heard discussing buying lumber, PVC pipe and electrical cords at Home Depot. He also mentioned buying foam blocks from a Largo garden store called Simply Hydro that can be used for growing marijuana.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Porcelli showed pictures of the home's evolution.

First, benches were built to hold buckets filled with plants. Faglier and several of Ferrell's associates rigged lights to simulate sunlight and a pumping system to cultivate the plants.

The artificial light gave off an intense amount of heat, so they installed a second air-conditioning unit in the house to cool it.

The men also paid an electrician to rig the house's electrical system so that it bypassed the meter, Faglier said.

The indoor garden required a huge amount of electricity and they didn't want to pay for it or tip off law enforcement, he said.

Faglier told jurors he did all of this on Ferrell's orders. Ferrell also paid for supplies, he said.

But on cross-examination, Ferrell's attorney, Joseph Bodiford, accused Faglier of intimidating his client into creating the drug house.

Faglier is a muscular man, with tattoos covering both arms and a dollar sign inked into his palm, Bodiford said.

On one tape, Faglier can be heard discussing a knife fight in Miami with two Cubans. He said one man was "no longer with us" and bragged of breaking the knife while fighting the other.

Bodiford asked Faglier whether he told his client about the fight to scare him.

"It's part of the role I'm playing," Faglier said. "All of it is an act."

[Last modified August 19, 2006, 11:47:56]