Pot grower, 70, gets 20-month term

Bruce Levy, a former Boca Raton resident who took off for Costa Rica as law enforcement closed in on his marijuana grow house six years ago, stood before a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday to ask for mercy.

Clad in a green-striped jail jumpsuit and walking with the aid of a cane, Levy presented himself to U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas as a rare specimen — a 70-year old man with a “perfectly clean” criminal record going to prison for the first time in his life.

The judge did not appear to be impressed. “This is not unusual for me,” he said, noting it was common for him to find himself ordering prison terms for first-time offenders of all ages.

Dimitrouleas sentenced Levy to 20 months in prison, four months less than the punishment sought by federal prosecutors and roughly a year less than he could have gotten under sentencing guidelines.

Levy pleaded guilty in December to one count of manufacturing cannabis.

But prosecutor Aurora Fagen agreed with defense lawyer Randall Haas that Levy deserved a break because of his age, family ties and acceptance of responsibility for his crime.

After he’s finished with his prison term, Levy will serve three years of probation. If the federal prison system gives him credit for time served since his May 2016 arrest, Levy could be free any time between October and January.

Federal authorities originally said Levy hid out in Costa Rica days after law enforcement stumbled onto the nearly 1,000 plants that he was cultivating in a storefront property on G Street in Lake Worth in 2011.

But Levy said in December that he was not an international fugitive — if he was hiding, it was in plain sight. He registered with the U.S. Embassy, continued to pay his taxes to the IRS and received his social security payments.

Authorities said they seized 984 pot plants from the property after deputies on bicycle patrol said they noticed a familiar smell coming from the storefront.

Fagen pointed to the sophistication of Levy’s operation in calling for jail time. “Mr. Levy took a calculated risk,” she said, noting that Levy researched how much marijuana he could grow while avoiding a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison. “He gambled and he lost.”

The storefront’s landlord later told investigators he had leased the store to a man, later identified as Levy, who told him he wanted to store coffee there for a rapidly growing business elsewhere.

Levy, who was using an assumed name on the lease, offered to reimburse the landlord directly for the unusually high electricity bills, telling him he didn't want the utility bills in his name because he was “on the down low” and “working off the books,” authorities said.

Authorities also searched Levy’s Boca Raton home in 2011 and said they found hydroponic equipment and evidence that some marijuana had been grown there.

Levy, who previously ran a successful furniture store in Broward County, started growing the plants after a coffee shop he opened in Palm Beach County fell victim to a bigger chain that opened in the same strip mall, his lawyer said.