EUGENE – Three men have pleaded guilty to charges from a high-profile marijuana bust in Grant County in July 2006.

The three were sentenced Sept. 9 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Jesus Carrasco-Olivera, 40, and Francisco Calixtro-Garcia, 25, were sentenced to 72 months in federal prison, and Santos Valencia Torres, 61, was sentenced to 60 months.

All three had been charged with manufacturing of a controlled substance, illegal possession of a firearm and deprivation of government property. The sentences on each charge will be served concurrently.

Each defendant also was fined $9,300, with restitution to be made to the Bureau of Land Management.

U.S. Attorney Steve Gunnells of Bend prosecuted the case as a high-intensity drug trafficking case because of the amount of marijuana plants involved.

Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer said that the convictions bring some closure to the case, although he noted that warrants are still outstanding for two more people in the case.

The drug case took “literally hundreds of hours to investigate and is by far the largest illegal marijuana grow ever discovered and eradicated in the county’s history,” Palmer said.

Police raided the Burnt Corral Creek drainage grow operation, seizing 6,767 plants, and a site on China Creek, seizing nearly 3,700 plants. The investigation involved federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

“We literally used dump trucks to haul the plants to a site where they were disposed of,” Palmer said. A helicopter also was used in the effort.

Police are still seeking Aureliano Aguilar Torres, 29, and Natasha Bettina Torres, also known as Natasha Lambeth, 25, on warrants in connection with the operation. They lived on Rudio Creek Road near Monument when police discovered the grow operation on China Creek.

Palmer said pending charges include illegal manufacture of maraijuana, weapons charges and endangering the welfare of the couple’s four children.

Anyone with information about those two people, or about any illegal cultivation of marijuana in the county, is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 575-1131.