© Maxine Bernstein/oregonlive.com/TNS One of the homes Adrian Gibson owned on Southeast Lincoln Street. Four homes he owned on the street that were used for the cultivation of marijuana were forfeited to the government. They were worth a total of $1.2 million, according to court records.
When Oregon’s marijuana regulations became too onerous for him, Adrian Roland Gibson converted four rental homes on a dead-end block in Southeast Portland into extensive grow sites to tap into out-of-state demand.
His workers came to tend the plants day in and day out. An overwhelming smell of pot wafted from the homes. The houses used excessive amounts of electricity.
Neighbors figured out what was happening and before long, thanks to at least two complaints, so did Portland police and federal investigators.
Gibson’s operation reflects the explosion of criminal marijuana grows to feed the illegal market, resulting in land grabs, safety issues, environmental damage and water shortages across the state, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia E. Jarrett told a judge Monday.
It also reflects the overproduction of marijuana in Oregon, which coupled with insufficient law enforcement resources to monitor compliance, has encouraged prolific trafficking of marijuana out of state, Jarrett said.
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon sentenced Gibson to a year and nine months in federal prison for conspiracy to launder money from his marijuana scheme.
From August 2017 through mid-January 2021, Gibson hid his profits — about $260,000 — in a business bank account under his initials: ARG Rentals.
Jarrett described Gibson’s actions as “classic drug trafficking money laundering” to disguise drug proceeds as rental income. Gibson also used some of the money to pay off years-old taxes owed on his marijuana grow properties, she said.
Gibson’s lawyers Janet Hoffman and Justin Rusk argued Gibson, 34, wasn’t a violent drug-trafficker and took responsibility upon arrest.
He forfeited the four properties that were worth a total of $1.2 million and has worked to “become sober” while out of custody awaiting sentencing, they said.
They also asked the judge to consider the changing landscape and perspective on marijuana, noting President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of people convicted of federal marijuana possession charges.
Hours before Gibson’s sentencing, Gov. Kate Brown announced she was erasing about 47,000 convictions for simple possession of an ounce or less of marijuana and forgiving associated fines for thousands of people.
COULDN’T AFFORD FEES
Gibson began medical marijuana cultivation in Washington when he agreed to be a caregiver and personal grower for a friend who was suffering chronic pain from a car accident, his lawyers said.
With a medical marijuana card, he began legally growing and distributing marijuana on behalf of other medical patients and marijuana dispensaries in Washington and continued until that state’s marijuana regulations changed.
He moved to Portland in 2014, where he initially grew and sold medical marijuana and had an Oregon Medical Marijuana Program-registered grow site at one of his properties. He also at one time had an Oregon medical marijuana provider card, but it expired.
In 2017, regulations governing medical marijuana began to change with the legalization of recreational marijuana, and he faced additional licensing requirements, his lawyers said.
Gibson planned to obtain a recreational license to grow marijuana in a regulated, licensed warehouse instead of his residential properties, but he couldn’t afford the higher fees, his lawyers told the judge.
Instead, he grew and sold marijuana illegally, acquiring adjacent homes and then building his own warehouses on site, Hoffman and Rusk said.
TIPS TO POLICE
An anonymous complaint to the Portland Police Bureau’s Narcotics and Organized Crime Unit in March 2020 spurred the investigation and led to Gibson’s arrest the following January.
The complaint alleged Gibson was growing marijuana at 16226 S.E. Lincoln St. and shipping it to New York for a tidy sum. It also alleged Gibson owned multiple grow houses on the same block.
The unit’s Officer Tequila Thurman found an earlier complaint made to police in August 2019 about a drug house involving the same property. It included texted screenshots of photos showing a large indoor marijuana grow plus refined THC, known as butane hash oil.
The person who complained in 2019 told police that Gibson lived at the 16226 SE Lincoln St. house and that it held the largest of the marijuana grows.
Each of the homes sat next to one another along Lincoln east of 162nd Avenue. The other addresses were 16246, 16306 and 16314 S.E. Lincoln. One of them had been registered as a medical marijuana grow site at one time, but the license had expired.
The 2019 complaint described five to 10 people who appeared to be working at the properties Monday through Friday. Cars often would arrive about 8:30 a.m. and leave at 5:30 p.m., the tipster said.
Thurman monitored the homes and could detect a strong odor of marijuana coming from the properties as she drove past them on April 29, 2020.
The smell was consistent with the venting of an indoor grow, IRS criminal investigations agent Scott McGeachy wrote in a probable cause statement.
A Portland police plane did a flyover, taking photos of the homes that showed walkways and gates linking the properties. Police spotted cameras at the back of the properties and a high electric fence above a rear privacy fence, according to the affidavit.
Subpoenas to Portland General Electric revealed “extremely high” power use at the homes, another flag for a marijuana grow. The power spikes appeared to reflect marijuana cultivation cycles, with workers harvesting the crops every two to three months, investigators said.
CASH THROUGH THE MAIL
Gibson’s U.S. bank account was linked to one of the homes, accumulating $224,975 in cash deposits from November 2018 through March 2020, plus a $38,801 wire transfer designated as an investment property exchange.
Police also traced more than 80 U.S. mail parcels sent to the Lincoln Street homes from New York state between January 2019 and December 2020, believed to carry cash payments for the marijuana sales, according to court documents. They came from the cities of Albany, Schenectady, Amsterdam, Latham and Watervliet.
Investigators found that Gibson’s properties weren’t registered under the Oregon medical marijuana program or as an authorized recreational marijuana grow site through the state.
Investigators didn’t say how much marijuana Gibson cultivated at the site.
But it was clear Gibson had a thriving business, said James Louden, a former neighbor told The Oregonian/OregonLive. He said he ended up selling his house on the Lincoln Street block to Gibson.
Louden said Gibson employed people who would come by every day to trim and manicure the plants. He said he understood Gibson was selling out of state because he could charge twice as much for the marijuana.
“You can’t blame the guy. He bought my house and the one next door and he was growing dope,” Louden said. “I didn’t care what he did. The only one that really cared was the IRS.”
HEADING TO PRISON
Gibson’s lawyers urged a six-month sentence for him, saying less time in prison would allow him to undergo drug and alcohol treatment and be a supportive father to his 1-year-old son and an older daughter.
He made some “bad decisions when faced with the reality of having to either give up his lawful medical marijuana business as a result of regulatory changes or continue acting outside of the law,” Hoffman wrote to the court. “Mr. Gibson acknowledges that he made the wrong choice.”
In turn, his marijuana use dulled his ability to grasp the impact of his crime, she and Rusk told the judge.
“Mr. Gibson wasn’t ever thinking in terms of this being money laundering,” Hoffman argued. “He thought this was the beginning of his rental business, which in effect served as a money laundering function.’’
Gibson declined to address the court.
Prosecutors sought a longer sentence of two years and nine months.
Simon chose a term in between the two requests and recommended that Gibson serve the sentence at Oregon’s federal prison camp in Sheridan. He must surrender on Jan. 19.
“Look, we all make mistakes. We own up to our mistakes. We accept responsibility for our mistakes. We make them right. At the conclusion of your sentence, you will have basically paid your debt to society….You’ll be fully welcomed back as a law-abiding member of society, and will show your family as well as yourself, that’s how a responsible, ethical person behaves.”
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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