TOWN OF JEFFERSON — Investigation into a theft of plants from an industrial hemp farm south of Juda has led to felony charges against two Illinois men.
Raymond D. Call, 40, Mount Morris, and Rigoberto L. Garcia, 22, Rockford, were charged in November in Green County Circuit Court with felony counts of theft and criminal damage to property. Call also faces a felony charge of possessing THC as a second or greater offense.
Call has signed a $25,000 signature bond and is due for a preliminary hearing Jan. 10. A warrant is issued for Garcia’s arrest.
Hemp production became legal again in 2018 for the first time in over 50 years in Wisconsin, where it was once a leading crop. As a strain of the cannabis sativa plant, industrial hemp looks and smells like marijuana but has had the psychoactive compound THC bred out of it.
According to the criminal complaint:
Green County deputies were called to investigate a suspected theft of hemp crop along Theiler Road, Town of Jefferson, at about 1:30 a.m. Sept. 25, 2018. A neighbor reported seeing six people and two vehicles with Illinois plates.
Deputies found a pair of shears and several white garbage bags in the field and “numerous plants that had been cut near the base.”
The owner later estimated total damages at $40,000 to $50,000.
That night, he and some helpers were installing trail cameras around the hemp crop when they saw a man nearby in the ditch. The man told them he was out walking and just looking at the hemp, then told them they were growing marijuana.
The owner informed the man it was industrial hemp and he had a permit to grow it. The man said it looked so good he “just wanted a taste.”
When deputies arrived, the man, identified as Call, claimed he was out looking for land where he could bow-hunt and his truck overheated. A search of the truck yielded a hatchet, machete, pruning shears and baggie of “green leafy material” that later tested positive for THC. The truck was impounded.
DNA evidence on the shears linked to Garcia, and a fingerprint on a garbage bag recovered in the field was identified as Call’s.