POT GROWING FARMER TO LOSE THE FARM

A south­east­ern Michi­gan farmer and his wife who nar­rowly dodged a prison sen­tence for grow­ing 8,000 mar­i­juana plants, will now be los­ing their house and their 23-acre farm.

Ed and Linda Schmied­ing, who are in their early 60’s, are not fight­ing a for­fei­ture claim by a Michi­gan State Police drug unit accord­ing to the couple’s attor­ney. The prop­erty was in jeop­ardy because it was the site of the mar­i­juana oper­a­tion in Lenawee County.

Schmied­ing pleaded guilty in fed­eral court but was sen­tenced only to pro­ba­tion.

A trial over the prop­erty had been sched­uled for Tues­day in Adrian, but an attor­ney for the Schmieding’s said it would have been dif­fi­cult to win. He sim­ply advised the cou­ple to put it behind them and move on.

Schmied­ing began grow­ing mar­i­juana in 2010 after years of grow­ing cut flow­ers and other plants. In all, police con­fis­cated 8,259 mar­i­juana plants, 56 bags equal­ing approx­i­mately 25 pounds of mar­i­juana processed for sale, and about 100 bags of mar­i­juana seeds marked with dates as early as 2006.