A federal grand jury in Fresno indicted Diego Garcia Lua on Friday charging him with cultivating marijuana and maintaining a drug-involved premises.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the 61-year-old Lua used his orange orchard in Orange Cove to disguise the presence of approximately 6,305 marijuana plants he was growing there.
Tulare County Sheriff and DEA Investigation
The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathleen A. Servatius and Katherine E. Schuh are the prosecutors.
If convicted, Lua faces a maximum statutory penalty of life in prison and a $10 million fine on count one and a 20-year maximum penalty and $250,000 fine on count two.
Any sentence, however, would be at the discretion of the court after consideration of applicable statutory factors and federal sentencing guidelines.
