Illegal pot invades California s deserts, bringing violence, fear and ecological destruction
Jaclyn Cosgrove and Louis Sahagún, Los Angeles Times
July 15, 2021
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Marijuana plants at Harboside Farms in Salinas, Calif., on Thursday, July 20, 2017.Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
LOS ANGELES Before his corpse was dumped in a shallow grave 50 miles north of Los Angeles, Mauricio Ismael Gonzalez-Ramirez was held prisoner at one of the hundreds of black-market pot farms that have exploded across California’s high desert in the last several years, authorities say.
He worked in what has become California’s newest illegal marijuana haven: the Mojave Desert. A world away from the lush forest groves of the “Emerald Triangle” of Northern California, this hot, dry, unforgiving climate has attracted more than a thousand marijuana plantations that fill the arid expanse between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado River.
San Bernardino County names Shannon Dicus new Sheriff-Coroner
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Thieves Are Stealing California s Scarce Water Where s It Going? Illegal Marijuana Farms
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Couple charged with involuntary manslaughter in Southern California fire sparked by gender reveal Martin Estacio, Palm Springs Desert Sun
Video: El Dorado Fire burns a ridge above the community of Oak Glen
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PALM SPRING, Calif. The couple who used a smoke bomb at a gender reveal ceremony and sparked Southern California s El Dorado wildfire that killed a firefighter last year has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and 29 other crimes, authorities announced Tuesday.
Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez pleaded not guilty Tuesday, San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson announced at a news conference.