Sorrento man gets prison time for home marijuana operation

BANGOR – A Sorrento man was sentenced in U.S. District Court to more than two years in prison for growing more than 450 marijuana plants on his West Side Road property.

Craig Folsom, 50, was sentenced Friday to 27 months in federal prison and three years’ probation after his release. He was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, forfeit ownership of the property where the plants were grown, and forfeit the more than $16,000 in cash found when he and Roxanna Sanborn, 56, were arrested in March 2004.

The property where the couple lived is valued for tax purposes at $206,200, according to Sorrento officials. Sorrento valuations are based on approximately 85 percent of market value.

The property will be sold by the government. A sale date has not been set.

Folsom and Sanborn each faced a maximum sentence of up to 40 years in prison and a fine of up to $2 million.

They pleaded guilty in March to manufacturing and possessing with intent to distribute marijuana.

Sanborn is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9 in federal court.

Folsom and Sanborn lived together in a single-story, eight-room home. When members of Hancock County’s three-person task force along with federal drug agents entered the house, they found 380 marijuana plants growing in six rooms and the cellar.

In a shed behind the house, agents found 72 marijuana plants. They also confiscated more than 19 pounds of processed marijuana in addition to hashish and cocaine, according to court documents.

“It was a very sophisticated operation,” Ellsworth police Lt. Harold Page said last year when the arrest was announced. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”