Florida Keys cops leave ransom note for pot, nab suspected grower

BY CAMMY CLARK

MARATHON -- After a citizen's tip led undercover detectives to six large marijuana plants growing in a wooded lot in the Keys, police half-jokingly left a phone number and ransom note.

``Thanks for the grow! You want them back? Call for the price . . . We'll talk.''

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

Steven Locascio, 48, negotiated $200 to get his six-foot-tall plants back and arranged a meeting place.

``He's got to win one of America's dumbest criminal awards,'' said Monroe County Sheriff's Col. Rick Ramsay. ``The plants were worth about $1,000 each. So he probably thought it was a good deal.''

The undercover detectives loaded the plants into a pickup truck and met Locascio, who handed over the cash -- and was arrested.

A court-approved search of his apartment turned up 20 smaller pot plants, four pounds of freshly harvested pot in a freezer and several 80 milligram Oxycontin pills. Detectives also seized $1,380 in cash.

Locascio and his wife, Christine, 50, were charged with cultivation of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and sale of marijuana.

``The detectives left the note as a last ditch effort, thinking he would never call,'' Ramsay said. ``But sometimes people do stupid things.''

From: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida-keys/story/1411133.html