-from chron.com-

By Anita Hassan and Jennifer Leahy

The man accused of drug trafficking in connection with a large drug bust is a mechanic who was asked “by a friend” to work on the tractor-trailer that police linked to a warehouse where several tons of marijuana were discovered, his attorney said Friday.

“He is a certified diesel mechanic who was called by a friend to come and work on the tractor-trailer. He has never been inside the warehouse in his entire life,” said defense attorney Don Becker. “He has no prior drug cases, owns a house, has kids. He’s no drug lord. He is a guy trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck. He even searched the trailer before getting in to work on it.”

Becker added that his client, Louis Mendez, suffers from cerebral palsy and suffered physical discomfort during the arrest.

Mendez, 29, was charged with possession of a controlled substance as well as possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. He remains incarcerated in lieu of $1 million bail in the Harris County Jail, where he declined an interview with the Houston Chronicle on Friday night.

Becker said he will request a bail reduction when Mendez appears in court Wednesday.

Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Dana Wolfe said Mendez was charged based on evidence at the scene, including the small amount of cocaine that was found inside the vehicle during his arrest. Wolfe said it will be up to the courts to determine Mendez’s guilt or innocence.

“They filed charges based on the evidence,” she said.

The marijuana was discovered Wednesday night in a warehouse in northwest Harris County as the result of a tip received by sheriff’s deputies.

Meanwhile, the 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of marijuana, with a street value of $25 million to $40 million, are being stored in a secure facility downtown. The drugs will eventually go up in smoke — but only after law enforcement agencies complete their investigation into the origin and composition of the narcotics.

Once the police investigation is closed and a court order is given to destroy the evidence, it will be transported to an undisclosed location and incinerated.

Before the drugs can be destroyed, however, each bundle must be tested by the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main hallucinogenic substance found in the cannabis plant, said Lt. J.D. Glesmann of the Sheriff’s Office’s covert operations unit.

A sample will be taken from each of the 502 packages, which range in size from 18-inch cubes to rectangular packages as long as several feet, to be assessed.

Weights of some of the bundles that appeared to be the same size also varied.

“We thought it was interesting that two bales that were the same size were two different distinct weights,” Glesmann said, explaining that may be because something else is hidden in the packages or because of the compression of the marijuana.

‘’If the marijuana hadn’t been wrapped so carefully, then you probably would have been able to smell it in the street.”

Each bundle was encased in about 2 inches of materials such as plastic, petroleum grease, and tape and was then covered in a layer of calcium carbonate, commonly known as lime.

“It (marijuana) has a pretty pungent odor, and the use of masking agents is common in these situations,” said Ray D’Alessio, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The marijuana bundles, which Glesmann said probably originated in Mexico and were brought to Houston through the Rio Grande Valley, were placed in large wooden crates topped with coal.

They were also labeled with car makes and numbers such as “corvet 13″ and “Ford 11″ that Glesmann said were mostly likely distribution markings. He said he believes the drugs were going to be dispersed nationally.

“The bigger the operation, the more trouble they go through (to package the drugs),” said Houston police Capt. Stephen Smith, who said the department made a 21,000-pound marijuana bust on Nov. 4. Smith said HPD also tests marijuana prior to destruction for THC levels as well as positive identification.

The registered owner of the warehouse is Tecno Properties, which did not return phone calls from the Chronicle.

Glesmann said he spoke to a representative from the company, and it seemed officials were not aware that the warehouse was being used for narcotics storage.

He added that he believed the group using the facility for storage was breaking in by cutting through the chains on the gate.

“Twenty thousand pounds of dope is a lot, but they (drug traffickers) are not in the business of storing it,” he said. “They’re in the business of getting rid of it, so it probably wouldn’t have been there very long.”

Chronicle reporter Lindsay Wise contributed to this report.