Two people have been charged in connection to an illegal marijuana growing operation in Chehalis that operated for six months in 2020.
Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) detectives do not know how much marijuana was grown at the site, but suspect it was a large-scale operation due to the high power consumption at the home, according to Lewis County Superior Court documents.
The building consumed over 25,830 kilowatt-hours of power between Jan. 10 and March 3, 2020 — a significant increase from the 4,000 kWh of power consumed in the same period the year prior.
Vivian Yu, 38, of Sacramento, California, and William Chen, 39, of Tacoma, were each charged for manufacture of marijuana, felony possession of a controlled substance and unlawful use of a building for drug purposes.
The married couple allegedly grew a significant amount of marijuana in the 100 block of Ridgeview Road from Jan. 10 to June 11, 2020. The property belonged to Yu, who paid the power bill while living in Sacramento. Chen reportedly lived with Yu in Sacramento, but had an official Tacoma address.
While JNET detectives were observing the property on June 11, 2020, a neighbor informed them that two people — later identified as Chen and a Puyallup resident named Ya Di Zhang — had loaded something into the back of a pickup and left the property. An officer with the Fife Police Department later pulled the truck over for speeding on northbound Interstate 5, and Chen gave the officer permission to search the back of the truck. The officer found two garbage bags filled with marijuana leaf trimmings. Samples sent to the Washington State Patrol crime lab were found to have a THC content above 0.3%.
JNET detectives returned to the Ridgeview address in June. 16 with a warrant and found remnants of a marijuana grow, including marijuana leaf clippings, fertilizer and other growing equipment.
“The plants had obviously been harvested, which is why the trimmings were in the truck five days earlier on the 11th,” reads a statement in the affidavit of probable cause filed in Lewis County Superior Court on Dec. 24.
Yu and Chen are both scheduled for preliminary appearances in Lewis County Superior Court on Feb. 3.
