ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512210091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
A Roanoke County real estate broker with a highly developed green thumb pleaded guilty Wednesday to organizing an indoor marijuana-growing operation that provided the best-quality pot in the area.
Victor Layman, who founded the Academy of Real Estate and owned an appraisal business, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana. Depending on how much pot the judge finds him responsible for, he could face a mandatory minimum of 5 years in prison when he is sentenced next year.
His wife, Dayna Patrick Layman, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy, but likely will be held responsible for considerably less pot when she is sentenced. Her attorney, John Lichtenstein, said her role in the conspiracy was minor and the operation was not an equal partnership between husband and wife.
"I've always been a horticulture lover, through irises, and I started growing marijuana plants," Victor Layman told U.S. District Judge James Turk. "I ended up having a couple of houses I grew marijuana in."
Layman, 40, was president of the Roanoke Valley Iris Society and was working to start a flower business with his wife when he was arrested last December on marijuana charges.
As part of his plea agreement, he will forfeit to the government three houses in which marijuana was grown, $54,000 in cash seized earlier, and 249 gold South African Krugerrands, held in a Bahamian bank, worth about $90,000. He also must forfeit a 1979 Dodge van, a computer system and the grow lights used to nurture the marijuana plants.
He will be allowed to keep the McVitty Road house where he and his wife live, which was bought years ago with legitimate income, and another piece of property.
As part of the agreement, Dayna Layman, 28, agreed not to contest her husband's forfeitures. She will be allowed to keep a 1989 Jeep Cherokee.
The couple also agreed to give up any interest in $100,000 they lost in an investment scam in Texas that the government is trying to recover, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott said.
All told, the Laymans forfeited more than $300,000 in cash and property, he said.
The couple still could be ordered also to make restitution to the IRS and pay fines.
Mott said he's satisfied that the government has accounted for most of the profits made from the marijuana.
The total operation, growing what police called "Phototron pot" (named for a piece of greenhouse equipment), produced about 4,000 plants over several years, Mott has said. The growers used sophisticated lighting and climate-control systems and carefully cultivated the marijuana to increase its potency.
Victor Layman's attorney, Tony Anderson, said that when evidence is presented at the sentencing hearings about how much pot each defendant is responsible for, he is confident Layman will not be accountable for "anywhere near" the full amount.
Of Wednesday's guilty plea hearing, he said, "That's the government's day today. Come the sentencing, that's our day."
Seven other people have pleaded guilty in the case. One defendant's case was continued because he has a terminal brain tumor.
Police have increased to 13 the number of grow houses they think were connected with the Phototron operation, Roanoke County Vice Detective H.W. Ewers said at the hearing. Three more - including one in the Midwest - were discovered after the Laymans began talking with investigators as part of plea negotiations, he said.
Throughout the investigation and court hearings in the past year, the defendants have enjoyed an unusually warm relationship with many of the investigators who arrested them.
After the hearing, in which Ewers testified about the Laymans' involvement in the conspiracy, Victor Layman walked over to him and shook his hand. They wished each other a Merry Christmas.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Layman. color.by CNB