Ling Ling Huang makes an appearance in Lewis County Superior Court Tuesday afternoon in Chehalis.
A Centralia woman accused along with her husband of illegally maintaining 625 marijuana plants in their home on Maple Valley Drive made her first appearance in court on the matter Tuesday afternoon.
Ling Ling Huang, 35, was charged in July with manufacturing marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to manufacture or deliver. A warrant was issued for her arrest that same month when she failed to appear to a preliminary hearing in Lewis County Superior Court.
Huang appeared out of custody this week and the warrant, which was still active for her arrest, was quashed by Judge James Lawler after it was mentioned a previous summons requiring her appearance was sent to a residence she no longer had access to and that she was pregnant at the time.
According to a probable cause affidavit, in 2017 the Lewis County Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team received information about a marijuana growing operation inside a house Huang and her husband, Jiewei Hu, 36, of Centralia, own.
Documents indicate they were seen putting up privacy fences around their property, and power records showed a sharp increase in power consumption after they bought the house and “the power would surge on a set schedule consistent with growing marijuana.”
A JNET detective said he could smell marijuana coming from the house.
During the execution of a search warrant, Hu was the only one home at the time. Authorities allegedly found 625 marijuana plants, plastic storage bins filled with 42 pounds of dried pot and 30 additional pounds of pot trimmings.
Authorities say they also found packing material.
“Hu denied selling any of the marijuana and stated that Huang was working as a maid at a hotel in Seattle. Hu said he was not employed and would only maintain the marijuana grow at that residence. Inside the residence were numerous items indicating that Huang and Hu were both living at the residence,” read court documents.
Hu was charged with manufacturing marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to manufacture or deliver and has a trial set for Feb. 11, 2019.
Huang pleaded not guilty Tuesday and has a jury trial scheduled for that same day.
A number of similar cases have cropped up in Lewis and surrounding counties. Wide reaching media outlets published stories on large numbers of individuals — often times Chinese nationals — being arrested during raids for maintaining sophisticated marijuana growing operations in states with lax marijuana laws. A story from the national media company McClatchy published just over a year ago indicates authorities in western states believe such operations spring up in this neck of the woods assuming they can work within the shadows of legal, commercial marijuana cultivation.
Organized crime has been eyed as the driving force of such operations, with individuals higher up the criminal ladder benefiting from the illegal dealing and using the cash to fund other illegal enterprises.
In November 2017, the Grays Harbor Task Force led a multi-agency endeavor across Grays Harbor, Thurston and King counties, which ended with the seizure of $80 million or more in plants, the Chronicle reported at the time.
A warrant served in Pacific County during the widespread raids led local authorities to Vader, where they arrested Hiep Duc Doan for allegedly maintaining a grow of 674 plants. Further information from Doan’s grow led authorities to a Winlock growing operation and three more arrestees: Nga Dong, Chanh Nguyen and Hai Son Le.
All charges against the four have since been dropped, after their attorneys argued the initial warrant in Pacific County wasn’t requested with enough probable cause.
“They shouldn’t have done that,” attorney Wayne Fricke said at the time. “They didn’t have probable cause for that warrant. That connects them to Lewis County, and so you hit the domino and that just tumbles.”
Two other individuals tied to a large-scale Lewis County grow, Jian Ming Zhu and Jin Liang Tan, were sentenced in July to one year and one day behind bars after JNET tied them to 2,500 illegal plants.
