-from cbs3springfield.com-

By Lesley Tanner

It’s been almost a year since Greenfield police responded to an anonymous call that a drug deal had gone bad at this property on Newell Pond Road. No one expected that tip would lead them to 500 marijuana plants, dozens of grow lights and 69 pounds of pot ready to sell.

“It took a number of days to get everything picked up, documented, secured, it was quite a task,” says Greenfield Police Captain John Newton.

Donald Hale and Alan Womer co-owned the building where police say their pot growing business had been booming for almost a decade, completely unnoticed. And despite the bust’s size and significance those responsible will barely see the inside of a jail cell.

“There is just no way of predicting an end result in any case that you have,” says Captain Newton.

After pleading guilty Hale was sentenced to one year in the House of Corrections, but will only be held for 90 days, while Womer will be out on probation for the next year. It’s a sentence investigators say does not define the quality of their work.

“Although it may be some indication of success or failure of law enforcement to do their job, or the courts, it’s not the best gauge of success of an investigation,” says Captain Newton.

Prosecutors say because the two had little to no prior records the sentence at trial would have been about the same. And so far investigators have found no evidence that the marijuana growing in Greenfield was being sold locally.