Pot growers allegedly tried to bribe Siskiyou sheriff with $1 million

A brother and sister organizing a pot-trafficking operation tried to bribe Siskiyou County's already marijuana-wary sheriff with $1 million, United States Attorney officials said Thursday.

But Sheriff Jon Lopey instead went undercover to turn them in.

"I don't know how often this happens, but when it does, it's shocking and a little alarming," Lopey said in an interview with the Record Searchlight Thursday. "It was an interesting case, to say the least."

More:Legal weed in Siskiyou: A county at odds

It started in May, when Chi Meng Yang, 31, of Montague, and his sister, Gaosheng Laitinen, 36, of the Mt. Shasta Vista subdivision outside Mount Shasta, approached Lopey over an interstate marijuana-trafficking plan, said Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento. 

Lopey said he'd met with Yang before and frequently talks to residents about issues, so he didn't think anything was amiss at first. 

But then Yang offered to donate $1 million to an organization of Lopey’s choice if he'd exempt their eight grow sites from a ban on outdoor marijuana grows, Horwood said.

That's when Lopey contacted the local District Attorney's Office, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

"What I did was something that the vast majority of law enforcement administrators or peace officers would do," Lopey said. "The fact that somebody would think that any law enforcement administrator would compromise their professionalism and integrity is, you know, rather shocking."

Yang also said he'd get money from the families on those sites and donate it to Lopey’s re-election campaign in exchange for protection from raids, according to the criminal complaint by Special Agent Dennis Hale with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Yang assumed Missouri would legalize medical marijuana in November and intended to use the weed to get an early start in that state's market, Hale said.

Lopey pretended to cooperate while instead working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Horwood said. While wearing a wire, he met with Yang a second time and agreed to accept $5,000 per property in protection money, she said. Yang introduced Laitinen to Lopey at a third meeting, Hale said.

"You have to develop a relationship and rapport," Lopey said of undercover operations. "It developed as time went on."

Yang and Laitinen told Lopey they were representing families on those properties, which they identified via assessor’s parcel numbers, Hale said.

But Yang had accidentally mixed up two numerals in his parents’ parcel number, so Lopey couldn’t find the property.

Because of that mistake, deputies later raided his parents' property June 28 in an unrelated case, seizing 65 pounds of marijuana, Hale said. Yang showed up and called Lopey, who told him about the mixed-up numerals.

“Yang confirmed the property should have been protected and asked for the seized marijuana to be returned,” Hale said. “The sheriff did not agree to return the marijuana.”

Yang and Laitinen paid him $10,500 before the FBI moved in, Hale said. At an Aug. 8 meeting, Yang allegedly urged Lopey to expand the plot to 40 to 50 parcels, Hale said.

Yang has been arrested while Laitinen is still being sought, Horwood said. They face up to 80 years in prison for the bribery and marijuana trafficking charges if convicted, she said. 

"I think that there's so much money involved in the industry that there's probably the belief that public officials can be corrupt," Lopey said. "It just illustrates the magnitude of the problem."

Lopey has already had a year of conflict with local pot growers: In September, a group of Hmong residents sued him, alleging in part that his enforcement of pot laws discriminated against the southeast Asian ethnic minority group. 

Lopey has said his enforcement has nothing to do with ethnicity and he simply had to step up his patrols because of the rampant illegal grows in Siskiyou. 

"We're more or less under siege right now," he said. 

Because of that, Lopey said he plans to ask the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency over illegal pot grows on Tuesday.

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