If you’re using the basement of your house to grow marijuana, you don’t want to come home to see cops at your place.
That’s the scenario Shelton police laid out Thursday, when they raided a residence on Saginaw Trail suspected as being used to cultivate marijuana.
Acting on a tip, police obtained a search and seizure warrant to explore the residence.
While doing so, the resident — 31-year-old Anthony Martino — came home, according to information released in a statement Friday by Lt. Robert Kozlowsky.
Martino took off in his vehicle, police said.
He was apprehended after a short pursuit.
Meanwhile, police said they found an “elaborate” hydroponic marijuana grow system set up in a newly-constructed room in Martino’s basement.
The room had an automatic watering and lighting system, along with 84 marijuana plants at “various stages of growth,” police said.
Cops said they found packaging material, a scale, and some pills to boot.
Martino was charged with possession of narcotics, possession of more than 4 ounces of marijuana, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of drug paraphernalia, cultivating marijuana, failure to keep pills in their prescribed container — and operating a drug factory.
He was also charged with two counts of risk of injury to a child because he lives in the house with his two small children.
Martino was being held on a $200,000 bond pending an arraignment in Superior Court in Derby today (Friday, March 25).
