Fire ends in marijuana indictment

COEUR d’ALENE — Around 4 p.m. on June 30, 2010, a neighbor called authorities after hearing an explosion at a rural residence in the Deep Creek area about seven miles south of Bonners Ferry.

Firefighters for the South Boundary Fire Protection District in Naples responded to what they thought would be a barn fire at 222 Raccoon Lane, Fire Chief Tony Rohrwasser recalled Friday.

By the time firefighters got there the shop, which looks like a large garage, was in flames along with a camper trailer in front. A propane tank had likely exploded. Two large metal shipping containers sat at both sides of the shop.

A house was about 100 feet away and safe from the flames.

Firefighters worked hard to keep the blaze from turning into a wildland fire.

Two mutual aid agencies brought water tenders that kept moving up and down a narrow entryway to the shop and residence, gathering water at a nearby pond.

Meanwhile, law enforcement that had responded made a surprising discovery.

According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene, the fire started an investigation by detectives into a marijuana-grow operation.

At the center of that investigation was Robert W. Baucum, 56, the man who owns the Raccoon Lane property and another in Boundary County, at 499 Juniper Lane.

Baucum has been indicted in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene, along with four co-defendants for conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

At the same time, the federal government is working to seize his property in the county, along with two other properties he owns in Scio, Ore., which is located southeast of Salem. His wife Janette Baucum also is an owner-of-record for the Oregon properties, court documents said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Idaho and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration can go after any property believed to be linked in some way to the alleged crime.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael W. Mitchell, in Coeur d’Alene, declined to comment about the case.

According to the indictment documents, filed late last year, Baucum and the co-defendants began conspiring together starting in 2004.

Documents say they possessed and attempted to distribute more than a thousand kilograms, possibly more, of a mixture or substance containing marijuana, and 1,000, or more, marijuana plants.

The indictment said $7.2 million in cash proceeds from the alleged marijuana distribution could be seized if it’s proved to be linked to the drug conspiracy.

Baucum’s co-defendants are listed as Charles A. Goodenough Jr., Justin E. Egner, Raymond E. Hogle, and Ronald C. Underwood.

Multiple other properties north of Anchorage, Alaska, also are listed as subject to criminal forfeiture. The Alaska properties are owned by either Goodenough, Hogle or Underwood.

This month, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge scheduled trial in the case for June 19 at the federal courthouse in Coeur d’Alene. The men will be tried together.

“We’re still reviewing the information and doing our own investigating,” Baucum’s defense attorney, Nicolas Vieth, in Coeur d’Alene, said this week.

He said his client is innocent, and is not in custody.

As to the possible asset seizure, “That is yet to be resolved as well,” he said.