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By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The man arrested in Vader smiled and thanked detectives when they complimented him on how nice his indoor marijuana growing operation was, according to court documents.
Heip D. Doan, 33, allegedly told Lewis County sheriff’s detectives he had multiple growing operations when he lived in California and had not yet started the paperwork to get permits for his ventures in Washington, the documents relate.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office had just finished seizing and loading up 674 mature plants from the property on the 700 block of B Street in Vader on Friday evening when Doan arrived to the home he said he rents from his sister-in-law. He looked at the back of the transport truck and said, “You’re taking my stuff,” court documents state.
Doan was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail.
Initiative 502 , voted into law in November 2012, made it legal for for individuals 21 or older to possess as much as one ounce of marijuana and also set up rules under which licensees may cultivate and package the greens and related products in Washington state.
Lewis County leaders chose to require applicants to provide approval from the federal government, which still outlaws marijuana, so no such businesses can operate legally in unincorporated Lewis County.
Doan was charged yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court with manufacture of marijuana, a class C felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Temporary defense attorney Rachael Tiller asked for the bail to be unsecured, and to take into consideration her client’s prior service in the U.S. Navy in Washington, and honorable discharge.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Paul Masiello noted the defendant had no prior convictions or warrants but said his driver’s license indicates he lives in San Jose, California.
Judge Joely O’Rourke imposed $25,000 bail.
His arraignment was initially scheduled for Thursday, but Tiller told the judge Doan has a court date in California on Wednesday and asked for his arraignment here to be set on Dec. 21.
Masiello said there was a December 2016 arrest in California for driving under the influence.
The judge agreed Doan could fly to California for his hearing, returning on Friday but required him to check in with the court on Monday.
While the outbuilding where Doan allegedly grew marijuana was across the street from Vader City Hall, local authorities only learned about it because Doan’s driver’s license was found at a home in Pacific County where Doan’s brother was arrested two weeks ago for unlawful marijuana growing.
Lewis County sheriff’s detectives began investigating and found the brother was a previous Lewis County PUD customer at the Vader property and Doan was the current customer, according to court documents. The electricity bill was unusually high, at $600 for a two-month period, according to court documents.
Deputies conducted surveillance at the Vader location twice, observing a residence, a garage and a large green outbuilding, which had all its windows “blacked out”, according to charging documents.
Some of the clues included a detectives detecting the odor of unburnt marijuana from 200 feet away, a humming noise consistent with the use of lights and fans, and a stack of potting soil packages and containers of liquid fertilizer they saw through a garage window, according to court documents.
When they executed the search warrant on Friday, they found the green outbuilding had been divided into three rooms, filled with growing marijuana plants.
“The rooms were all set up with ventilation into carbon filters and had lighting attached to programmable timers,” Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Joel DeFazio wrote in the affidavit regarding probable cause.
Deputies confiscated the plants and the the growing equipment, as well as more than $2,500 cash and several pieces of indicia from inside the house.
This arrest was tied to a growing operation in Grayland in Pacific County, but Sheriff Rob Snaza said it’s all tied together to the huge investigation in that began in Grays Harbor County.
On Nov. 28, the Grays Harbor County Drug Task Force oversaw a series of at least 50 search warrants getting served there, in Thurston County and in King County following an investigation into illegal marijuana growing operations by Chinese nationals. They had learned of numerous homes being purchased for that purpose, primarily for cash.
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For background, read “Illegal marijuana growing by Chinese nationals targeted in Grays Harbor County” from Tuesday November 28, 2017, here [2]