Another Fercan flashback.
From Brewery to Grow-Op to Custody Battle: Crown Battling for $8.9M Former Molson Plant Site
(National Post, Marg. Bruineman, Oct 2, 2012)
It was once home to Barrie, Ont.’s biggest employer, and later the country’s largest indoor grow-op, with marijuana growing in old beer vats. Now, the 35-acre former Molson Brewery site, worth an estimated $8.9-million, sits fallow, ragweed sprouting up in the former parking lots. The only remaining structures: a tiny guard house with a busted window along with a for sale sign.
It is owned by Fercan Developments Inc., whose principal is Toronto property developer Vince DeRosa. But federal prosecutors assert the property is the proceeds of crime; a forfeiture hearing, with its goal of seizing it for the Crown, is under way this week in Newmarket, Ont.
Mr. DeRosa has never been criminally linked to the grow operation, but his brother, Robert, was identified as the property manager and a key organizer in the marijuana production and is serving a seven-year prison term. At his sentencing last year, Robert said his brother had no knowledge of the buds, and apologized to him.
Brian Greenspan, Fercan’s lawyer, said taking one man’s property for the actions of his brother may be the makings of a morality tale, but it has no basis in law.
“The government thinks an innocent third party should have their property forfeited,” he said. “They force us in court for us to prove we’re the innocent third party. This is a total reversal of traditional principles.
“They say, biblically, that Vince DeRosa is his brother’s keeper.”
The Crown says the property was used to commit a criminal offence, and that the owner of the property knew about it and profited from it.
Over the coming weeks, Justice Peter West is expected to hear details about how police swept into the former Molson brewery on Jan. 10, 2004.
Through the use of 91 photographs and a video of the plant, OPP Det.-Const. Michael Bednarczyk began explaining Monday and Tuesday what he and a large team of officers discovered when they raided the former brewery: A secret door, hidden behind a hinged bookcase on wheels, a camera hidden inside a speaker wired to a monitor in a nearby bedroom, a stolen generator, complicated electrical and air exchange systems.
“That was the only access to the grow operation,” he testified. The prosecution is expected to present another 18 witnesses, revealing in detail for the first time what was going on behind the walls of the former brewery, as well as another building along Highway 11 in nearby Oro-Medonte Township, and how they operated so secretly within plain sight.
National Post filesIn an effort to save their jobs, workers blockade the front of the Barrie, Ont., Molson plant in November 1999, shortly after the announcement that the plant would be closing.
About a dozen “gardeners” working 24-hour shifts and living in an on-site dormitory were arrested; all later pleaded guilty to production-related charges. In 2010 there was another set of arrests, of what police called the masterminds. Most of them, largely middle-aged men, also pleaded guilty to the related charges.
Grow charts found inside the facility, where more than 2,000 five-leaf plants were grown, indicated the Molson building could have been serving as a cannabis growing factory for two years before police were tipped off, reaping an annual income in excess of $8-million. Forty 100-foot-long vats, once used for commercial beer production, were converted into hydroponic greenhouses. Police estimated it would have cost about $3.5-million to launch the operation.
Det.-Const. Bednarczyk laid out the scene within the sprawling plant: Two different sections, operating under two separate companies that rented space, were used and retrofitted, each with a series of grow rooms, bedrooms and dormitories. The entrance to one of the grow areas within space leased by Ontario Pallet was obscured by the moveable bookcase, he explained. And inside one of the rooms, with rules posted on the wall, a hidden camera would monitor the growers’ work.
There were rooms that housed plants in various stages of growth and a “mom room” where clippings were cut off older plants to create new ones. He pointed to a watering system, the electrical rooms with walls of wires and extra wiring bringing in power from another part of the building and the heat exchange system equipped with dampers.
“Nothing is left to chance,” said the police officer.
During pre-hearing motions last week, Justice West said he viewed the forfeiture provisions as part of the sentencing process, separate of the actual sentencing of the offenders but part of the sentencing phase.
“The seizure of the property and putting it into the forfeiture application process is another step into targeting organized crime in Ontario,” said OPP Insp. Andy Karski.
The Crown also wants to seize proceeds from the sale of Bob DeRosa’s house in Phelpston, Ont., near Barrie, owned by GRVN Group Inc., its principal is another DeRosa brother. Prosecutors allege that designated substance offences were committed there in 2010.
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