Old Town man gets five years for growing marijuana plants

BANGOR – An Old Town marijuana grower who a federal prosecutor said “suffered from the Enron syndrome” was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison.

Brian Grant, 53, also was sentenced in U.S. District Court to five years of supervised release following his sentence and ordered to forfeit more than $160,000 in cash and property.

“The cause of his downfall is that Mr. Grant believes in his heart that he’s the smartest person in the room,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Perry told the court, alluding to the title of a 2005 documentary film about the Enron scandal subtitled, “The Smartest Guys in the Room.”

Grant, a 1981 graduate of University of Maine, pleaded guilty 18 months ago to manufacturing marijuana. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $2 million.

In December 2001, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents seized more than 200 marijuana plants from an indoor growing operation on land owned by Grant in Edinburg. Ten months later, agents found fertilizer, grow lights and other items to support the operation in an Enfield storage unit Grant rented.

“Frankly, Mr. Grant, your past history and your presentation in court makes this crime baffling,” U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said Tuesday in handing down the sentence. “It’s just a shame you chose to pursue this illegal business rather than a legal way to garner money.”

Grant, who had worked as a contractor in the 1990s, forfeited the more than $12,000 in cash seized by police, his sport utility vehicle and the Edinberg property where he grew the plants in a small house.

His profits from marijuana sales were estimated at $148,500, Perry said Tuesday. The sale of the land and the SUV are to be deducted from that amount.

The judge ruled earlier this month that Grant was not eligible for the so-called safety valve, which would have allowed Woodcock to sentence him based on the federal sentencing guidelines rather than to the mandatory minimum. Using the guideline range, Grant faced three to four years in federal prison, Woodcock said Tuesday.

Under the safety valve rule, a defendant must prove that he or she has fully cooperated with prosecutors. At a hearing earlier this year, Perry successfully argued that Grant had changed the story he told prosecutors at least once and added more information when he testified at the hearing.

Grant told the court Tuesday that although he may have added a few details, he had not changed the essence of what he told Perry and investigators about his marijuana growing operation.

Robert Napolitano, Grant’s Portland attorney, told the court that he would appeal Woodcock’s denial of the lesser sentence.

In a related case, Grant’s wife, Cherie Grant, 53, of Old Town was sentenced last month to 30 days in prison for attempting to avoid reporting a large cash transaction to the Internal Revenue Service when she bought a truck in September 2001. Incarcerated since Aug. 18, she also was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

The Grants bought the truck using $9,900 in cash and $4,600 in a cashier’s check at the suggestion of the salesperson at the dealership, according to court documents. Originally, the couple had intended to make the $14,500 down payment in cash, but changed their minds when told any cash purchase over $10,000 had to be reported to the IRS.

Perry told the judge Tuesday that the Grants filed tax returns claiming an income of $8,000 in 1999, $10,000 in 2000 and $9,000 in 2001. The couple spent about $285,000 more than that during those years, the prosecutor said.