DEA
Residents were shocked to learn of Andrea Sanderlin's alleged secret life. “She seemed like every other mom,” said Scott Tarter at the Twin Lakes Farm in Bronxville, where Sanderlin rode horses.
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Meet the Scarsdale version of “Weeds” — a divorced suburban mom busted for allegedly running a multimillion-dollar pot growing operation from a Queens warehouse.
Andrea Sanderlin was cooling her heels Tuesday in a Brooklyn lockup and facing up to 10 years in prison for running what the feds described as a “sophisticated operation to grow and process marijuana.”
And unlike the fictional pot princess on Showtime’s “Weeds,” played by Mary-Louise Parker, Sanderlin will need more than a script writer to get her out of this jam.
HANDOUT/REUTERS
Actress Mary-Louise Parker of the series "Weeds." Unlike Parker's pot princess character, Andrea Sanderlin will need more than a script writer to get her out of this jam. She faces up to 10 years in prison.
Her lawyer, Joel Winograd, called her a “full-time mother” with no criminal record. She has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of conspiring to manufacture and distribute 1,000 or more pot plants.
“She’s never been in trouble before,” he said. “It’s rare that you get a woman accused of running a grow house.”
NORMAN Y. LONO/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Andrea Sanderlin and her two daughters lived the high life in this spacious Scarsdale, NY home.
Winograd, whose past clients include Gambino mob soldier Michael (Roc) Roccaforte and celebrity shoe-designer-turned-scammer Steve Madden, is now trying to get her sprung on bail.
The 45-year-old blond’s arrest came as a jolt to people who knew her as the doting mom of two girls, ages 3 and 13, who tooled around her Westchester town in a Mercedes SUV and lived in a sprawling, five-bedroom house.
“She seemed like every other mom,” said Scott Tarter at the Twin Lakes Farm in Bronxville, where Sanderlin rode horses and one of her daughters is in the riding academy. “I did find it odd that she hadn’t been around for a couple of weeks.”
DEA
When authorities first confronted Sanderlin at the warehouse, she denied them entry, so they obtained a search warrant.
At Sanderlin’s Spanish-style home, shocked neighbors said the only red flag was the father of her younger daughter.
“It was obvious that he wasn’t a dad who put on a shirt and tie and took the 7:04 to the city,” one neighbor said.
DEA
Law enforcement said the warehouse was equipped with “state of the art lighting, irrigation and ventilation systems.”
But former father-in-law James Sanderlin started chuckling when a Daily News reporter told him she had been arrested.
“Isn’t that something?” the North Carolina man said. “She and my son married young and have been divorced for upteen years. They had a son and my son raised him.”
DEA
An informant reportedly led police to Sanderlin. Authorities noticed the warehouse used an unusually high amount of electricity.
Asked what Sanderlin was like, he answered, “I’d rather not say.”
Sanderlin’s secret life began spilling out in April when Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested five men who had been growing pot in two New York City warehouses, according to a complaint.
Their alleged leader was 50-year-old Stephen Haberstroh, a longtime friend of Sanderlin’s, according to The Smoking Gun website, which broke the story.
SAM COSTANZA
Anthony Flores, 33, in front of his home at 58-14 57th Drive — across the street from the hydroponic marijuana operation — would often smell the marijuana aroma emitting from the warehouse.
To save his own skin, one of the five spilled that a woman he knew as “Andi” had her own pot plantation somewhere in the city. Investigators began tailing Sanderlin and discovered she ran a business called Fantastic Enterprises from a warehouse in Maspeth, Queens.
They discovered it was using an “unusually high amount of electricity” — a tell-tale sign of an indoor pot-growing operation — and that she paid her bills in cash.
SAM COSTANZA
Authorities recently raided the warehouse at 58-15 57 Drive to find a hydroponic marijuana growing operation.
On May 20, the feds confronted Sanderlin at the warehouse and discovered a pot growing operation complete with “state of the art lighting, irrigation and ventilation systems.”
They also seized around 2,800 plants and “large quantities of dried marijuana,” records show.
At Sanderlin’s home, the feds found $6,000 in cash and books on money laundering and growing marijuana
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/westchester-mom-accused-running-massive-pot-operation-article-1.1363153#ixzz2VM5WS7VZ
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