Smell, electric bill led to drug arrest of Valley man

PALMER — Court filings reveal it was an inflated electrical bill and a traffic stop that led Alaska State Troopers to search a Wasilla-area home May 10, coming up with an estimated 10 pounds of marijuana.

According to filings Investigator Curtis Vik made in the case against Gregory Tovsen, Vik and Sgt. Mike Ingram went to Tovsen’s house on Sands Drive at 11:31 a.m.

“As we explained to him that we suspected he had a large-scale commercial marijuana grow operation on his property due to a large amount of electrical consumption taking place, we asked him for consent to search his detached garage (also on the property) to look for evidence,” Vik wrote.

Tovsen declined to let the troopers in and they left.

But at 10:45 p.m., Tovsen was stopped in his vehicle when a patrol trooper “observed Tovsen commit a driving infraction,” Vik writes in his report.

Vik writes that Tovsen agreed to have his car and person searched and the patrol oficer didn’t find any drugs. But the trooper did report smelling fresh marijuana in Tovsen’s vehicle. So Vik applied for and was granted a search warrant on Tovsen’s home.

Vik said the search turned up a marijuana grow built under Tovsen’s detached garage.

“We found several trash bags lying on the floor of the grow room that were found to be full of freshly harvested marijuana plants, discarded root balls and various types of grow chemicals,” Vik wrote.

He wrote that the grow had been partitioned into three gardens, two of which had been dismantled by the time troopers got there. The remaining garden had 16 plants live and budding.

There were also “six complete light systems and a large marijuana ‘mother’ plant in one of the adjacent gardens” as well as a scale and “packaging materials,” Vik wrote.

The marijuana in the trash bags weighed in at something like 60 pounds. By law, only one-sixth the weight of that kind of wet marijuana can be used to prosecute someone for distributing marijuana. Hence, the troopers’ estimate of 10 pounds of saleable marijuana.

“When asked about the trash bags full of the recently harvested marijuana and the discarded root balls, (Tovsen) admitted after I had met him earlier in the day that he was tying to clean up,” Vik wrote. “He was essentially asked if he was trying to minimize his liability and he agreed that was the case.”

Vik wrote that Tovsen also admitted to being the sole person responsible for the grow operation, that he built the structure housing it and that he’d “distributed marijuana to a friend of his before in the past in quantities larger than just personal use.”

Tovsen was jailed on three counts of drug misconduct and one of evidence tampering. Days after being arrested he was released on bail.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.