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Ex-Osceola fire chief arrested in pot growing bust
Erin Cox | Orlando Sentinel | 07/04/2005

A former Osceola County fire chief is facing charges of running a
million-dollar marijuana-production operation from a house near
Holopaw in rural southeast Osceola.

A tip led deputies to a house owned by former Fire Chief Jeffrey Ray
Hall, 42, who now lives in Melbourne.

Hall's partner in the operation told investigators the two were taking
in $15,000 a month by growing and selling an especially potent variety
of pot known as "crippy," which fetches a higher street value, the
Osceola Sheriff's Office said.

The sheriff's community-response team found 460 marijuana plants, 18
pounds of pot and several grow rooms with watering and high-tech
lighting systems in the house, sheriff's spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain
said.

A $23,000 generator ran the lighting and sprinkler system, she
said.

Officials said the evidence seized had a value of $1 million -- partly
because of the price that "crippy" marijuana, with its high content of
THC -- the chemical component that creates the "high" -- fetches on
the street. The variety is known on the Internet as the most potent
available in Florida.

Hall was arrested Saturday on charges of trafficking in cannabis,
manufacturing cannabis and possession with intent to sell. He was
released from the Osceola County Jail on Sunday morning on a $50,000
bond.

He could not be reached for comment.

Lizasuain said Hall admitted to profiting from the operation but not
to selling drugs.

Hall was a high-profile public official during a tenure that included
massive wildfires and devastating tornadoes. He stepped down in 1999
after six years as fire chief and later left the department.

Deputies received a tip about the pot-growing operation and followed
Hall's accomplice's pickup as he left the property on Broadstream
Drive, authorities said. The accomplice told deputies that Hall owned
the mobile home, and that the pair started the operation when both
were firefighters in 2001.

Officials expect to charge the accomplice early this week, Lizasuain
said.

Hall requested a demotion in 1999 after two other fire officials were
demoted to cut costs in Osceola County. As chief, he made $55,000 a
year and said he wanted to spend more time with his family.

"I do not want to make the same mistakes I have made in the past,"
Hall wrote in his request for demotion. "My family is very important
to me, and my job has prevented me spending the quality time with them
that they deserve."

Hall's father was a volunteer firefighter in Kentucky.

When Hall became head of public safety in 1993, he was the youngest
person to do so in county history and the first to be both fire chief
and the head of emergency management.

Hall got his start when he joined the Fire Department reserve team in
Orange County at 14. By 1983, he became a St. Cloud firefighter.

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