TOPEKA — A man who was recruited in Mexico to tend a marijuana farm in Osage County was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison. Marcelo Parra-Ocmo, 42, Mexican national, pleaded guilty to cultivating more than 6,000 marijuana plants at the farm near Carbondale. U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said law enforcement officers first noticed the site in February, but which appeared to have been abandoned for the winter. They watched the site and an overflight in May revealed that cultivation had resumed. In June, agents from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Osage County Sheriff’s office and other agencies raided the site, where they arrested Parra-Ocmo, another man, Ernest Duenas-Aceon, and Parra-Ocmo’s teenage son, who was a high school student. Duenas-Aceon will be sentenced Jan. 23. Experts say that increasing, Mexican drug cartels are recruiting Mexicans and bringing them to the U.S. to cultivate massive marijuana operations. Law enforcement officers recently found a large pot operation in nearby Linn County.
Tuesday, Nov. 22, 7 a.m.
