South Jersey Pot 'Gardener' Gets 8 Years In State Prison

An Ocean County jury recently sentenced a South Jersey man to eight years in state prison for operating a marijuana production facility on a wooded swath of land in Tuckerton.

Jon Peditto must serve a third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, according to NBC10.com.

He was convicted in October of growing 17 marijuana plants in a wooded area and also charged with possession of marijuana. Peditto claimed he was a gardener trying to cultivate a better strain.

The Mays Landing man had maintained that he grew the 17 marijuana plants found by police in Tuckerton in 2012 mostly for personal use. He also admitted to selling it to friends and family.

Detectives from the Prosecutor’s Special Operations Group along with members of the Little Egg Harbor Police Department and the New Jersey State Police arrested Peditto, then 51, after he was “observed tending to more than seventeen marijuana plants in the wooded area,” former Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford has said.