For the second time in three years, sheriff's deputies Wednesday raided the Moon Hill home of Dr. Alan Ager, where they seized 135 marijuana plants growing in a ravine.
The San Geronimo podiatrist was arrested on charges of cultivating marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale. Sheriff's Lt. Jim Riddell said three garbage bags of dried marijuana were found inside Ager's house.
The 135 plants growing outside were three to four feet high and "starting to mature," said Lt. Riddell. "They were budding."
Riddell added that the plants were found by an airplane flown by the Sheriff's Office Air Patrol. They were "in a drainage down below the barn where he was growing before," the officer added.
Ager was arrested Sept. 3, 1993, after a small army of agents seized 1,100 pot plants at his home on the ridge that separates Nicasio from San Geronimo Valley. He was also charged with stealing electricity for his pot growing from PG&E.
However, Ager and his attorney claimed the plants - hidden in a greenhouse with a translucent roof - could have been seen only by means of an earlier, illegal search.
Before ruling on the matter, Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker issued an opinion excoriating lawmen, agreeing that the plants would have been hard to identify through a fiberglass roof.
US attorneys then offered Ager a deal whereby the podiatrist pled guilty to money laundering, agreed to pay a $10,000 fine, and gave up $129,000 seized from his accounts.
The government, however, returned to Ager other assets seized, including a $72,780 Jaguar car and his spectacular Swiss-chalet-style house.