Brothers charged with growing pot off Rt. 280
Okay than! this is the most shocking thing I have seen and I wish I know this before. Read the article below from NJ.com. Any one in north jersey knows this road. 280? trips to newark? city? any ways read the damn thing and u be like what the fuck?
Brothers charged with growing pot off Rt. 280
Two brothers from Union County thought they had found the perfect place to plant a little pot, police say.
It was tucked deep in the woods of western Essex County, away from any hiking paths. It was hidden by thorny brush and a series of furrows. And it had easy access to the highway.
Perhaps too easy.
Roseland police say Gordon and Jefferey Vandermeiren had been cultivating a marijuana plot that backed up against Route 280 -- a not-so-private patch that roughly 70,000 cars a day had been driving by for five months.
"It was about 100 yards away from Livingston Avenue," said Detective Sgt. Dennis Donovan of the New Jersey State Police's Marijuana Eradication Unit. "There were a billion cars driving past."
Yet that's where police said the Vandermeirens chose to sow a 3,000-square foot cannabis garden, unaware they had been watched since April by a rotating team that included Roseland police, Essex County Sheriff's deputies, State Police detectives and some technical assistance from the New York City Police Department.
Roseland Police Chief Richard McDonough said the team had been waiting for the right time to arrest the brothers. That time came Tuesday night at 9 p.m., when the Vandermeirens arrived to tend their plants.
Police ended up confiscating 182 plants, some of which had grown to be six feet tall. If cultivated, Donovan estimated each plant would have yielded a pound of high-end marijuana which, at $3,000 per pound, would have a street value over $500,000.
The chief said both brothers were charged with cultivating marijuana and are now lodged in the Essex County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail each.
Though McDonough would not give the location of the plot, other law enforcement officials said it was toward the rear of the Prudential corporate complex, a corporate park popular for joggers that backs up against the westbound lanes of Route 280.
Donovan said the plants were not visible from the highway -- the trees growing at the road's edge obscured the view.
"There was no way you would stumble upon it. It was an inaccessible area," he said. "You would never go on a hike there, because there was nothing to see."
Donovan said the two brothers -- Gordon Vandermeiren, 51, of Scotch Plains and Jeffrey Vandermeiren, 53, of Cranford -- had a routine. They would come to Roseland every couple of weeks, park their car and hike into the woods to check on the plants. The plants didn't need to be watered because of natural streams running in the area that kept the ground damp, he said.
The police sting foiled months of careful cultivation of the plants, which are known to grow in the wild in Europe and Asia but not on this continent. The cannabis had been protected from deer and other curious woodland vegetarians by chicken-wire fencing.
A woman answering the phone at Gordon Vandermeiren's home in Scotch Plains said she was a relative, but would not give her name. "I know nothing about this, but I can assure you they're not drug dealers," she said. "I'm just completely dumbfounded."
Sheriff Armando Fontoura said one of the brothers worked in the West Essex area. He called the incident "highly unusual" for suburban Essex County.
"It was an isolated area," said Chief McDonough. "It's the first time we're aware of this type of growth."
The timing of the arrest was important, police said, because the plants were nearly ready to harvest.
McDonough said the arrest was the culmination of "hundreds of hours of surveillance" and thanked his officers -- Detective Lt. Vincent Thomas, Detective Sgt. Charles Ribaudo and Detective Freddie Mitchell -- along with other agencies that conducted the investigation. Even the Roseland Fire Dept. lent a hand by providing lights for the night-time arrest on Tuesday.
Roseland Mayor Michael Pacio also praised the police agencies for their good work yesterday, adding, "I think people are going to be surprised that this was happening in their backyard."
