BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
AMELIA -- Police say it wasn't simply the 360 marijuana plants found in a vacated apartment that startled them.
A second serious concern was something that accompanied the plants: a shotgun.
The plants, if grown to maturity, would have had a street-value of about $360,000, Amelia Police Chief Thomas Ellis said. The charge would be cultivation of marijuana.
He said Thursday a grand jury indictment is possible as early as next week.
"People may be growing it for their own consumption," he said, "but this size, we feel they were in the distribution aspect."
Police received an anonymous tip last Friday that marijuana plants in a second-story apartment were visible from Main Street.
"They didn't hide them," Chief Ellis said.
Police obtained a search warrant and found in the recently vacated apartment an elaborate "grow system" with lights. In the corner, police confiscated a shotgun. The building had been sold about a month ago. and the second-floor residents, he said, moved out recently.
