An Oregon man who allegedly abused medical marijuana laws to sell large amounts of pot was sentenced for the crimes on Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in Portland.
Tu Ngoc Tran, 38, or Portland, received five years in prison for one count of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana, two counts of manufacturing marijuana, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and one count of wire fraud, according to a bulletin from Gerri Badden with the U.S. Department of Justice. A federal jury convicted Tran of those charges in December.
The case dates back to December 2010, when police from Portland and Clark County raided two homes in Portland and one in Vancouver and found more than 500 marijuana plants and more than 100 pounds of processed marijuana, police said. Also found were forged documents for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, but neither home in Portland was a legally registered grow site.
Officers said members of the crime ring made false statements on mortgage applications to buy homes they used as indoor marijuana-growing operations, and one of the houses was under foreclosure.