In a five-year-old case, a Nevada City woman has pleaded guilty, in a federal courtroom in Sacramento, to her involvement in a major marijuana growing operation that also involved Placer and El Dorado counties. According to prosecutors…between 2008 and 2010, Patricia Albright, now 64 years old, and others, including her son, manufactured marijuana on two properties she owned, one near Nevada City and one near Georgetown. The crop was regularly shipped out of state under fake names and addresses. Nevada County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Bill Smethers, who was with the local narcotics task force at the time, helped with the raids in September of 2010…

click to listen to Lt Smethers

Albright also pleaded guilty to structuring currency transactions to evade federal reporting requirements. Court documents say when Albright purchased the property near Georgetown, she structured 21 transactions at six different financial institutions over three days, so she could avoid cash deposit requirements. Over 41-hundred plants were seized at both properties, including numerous firearms. Smethers says raids of this scope were not unusual for him, which also included one on the Nevada City property in 2002…

click to listen to Lt. Smethers

Albright is scheduled to be sentenced on December 3rd. The U-S Attorney’s Office says the plea agreement contemplates a sentence of five years and five months in prison. Her son, Jordan Wirtz, who lived on the El Dorado County property, pleaded guilty last year to federal firearms charges and has been sentenced to five years in prison.