Photo gallery at end, watch Wellsville Sun’s exclusive video of the press conference
Driving up Farnsworth Road in Cuba, N.Y. to the old cookie factory is one of the most picturesque views in Allegany County. A rolling road, streams and plenty of views.
On Thursday this week, that view was halted with police and other law enforcement agencies swooping in the former factory to seize $4 million in drugs while making arrests.
Cuba Police Chief Dustin Burch said “the street value is $3.5 million to $4 million, and that’s a conservative figure” while adding it was the largest bust he has ever seen in Allegany County.
Police made two arrests, Daniel S. Ackerman, 58, of Cuba and Ana Laura Maldonado-Delgado, 31, last known address Cuba.
Both were charged with two counts of felony first-degree criminal possession of cannabis, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon (One of the weapon charges against Ackerman was a felony) and criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Ackerman was additionally charged with resisting arrest. Ackerman was arraigned in CAP Court in Allegany County and released with tickets. Police said Maldonado-Delgado was an undocumented immigrant and was turned over to border patrol agents.
During a press conference attended by Chief Burch, county law enforcement officials, town officials, the district’s attorney office and Officer Dylan Burch, police talked about the magnitude of the bust, why marijuana was an issue, other drugs and bail issues.
When Cuba Police was made aware there was a potential illegal drug operation with employees being paid under the table, an investigation started.
“About a year ago, because of the activity and complaints that were coming in, the town board was gracious enough to actually assist us in that process of starting our own narcotics unit,” Chief Burch said. “They allowed us funding that truly helped. Over the last year we’ve had 24 felony arrests related to narcotic sales in Cuba and we’ve executed three warrants. I can’t thank Cuba Town Supervisor Lee James and the board enough for trusting this process.”
The former cookie factory at 8670 Farnsworth Road was raided by police on Thursday at 7 a.m. Police said they seized 600 marijuana plants weighing 1,000 pounds, 100 pounds of dried marijuana bud, psilocybin mushrooms, lab equipment and an illegal handgun. Cuba Police were assisted by the Allegany County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, DEA, border patrol, and a K-9 unit from the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office.
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“This location was an old factory, it was quite large, we had a lot of agencies involved. The operation was quite an undertaking,” Chief Burch said.
There was some frustration over the arraignment process under New York state laws.
“We worked on this case for 12 months. I don’t like to play politics, but there is a lot of manpower in this here, a lot of overtime and now, there is a lot of frustration,” Chief Burch said. “There is a resisting arrest charge here. We have 50 percent or more of people resisting us when we make arrests. We do all this work, we potentially get hurt, and since bail reform happened, they get out. We were here from 3 a.m. until well into the night. We were subjected to the conditions inside these buildings, the resisting (incident) and then (the suspect) gets released.”
Allegany County District Attorney Ian Jones said “It’s important to note we have a lot of charges here and high-level charges but not high enough to fall into our new bail laws. It has to be an A1 felony, which operates as a major drug trafficker and it’s very hard to prove. You have to prove the drugs are moving and the money coming in and out for 12 years. I think this highlights yet another failure of our bail reform. Here we have arguably the largest drug bust in the history of this county, yet it’s still not good enough to meet our new bail rules, so unfortunately, no bail rules were set.”
Town Supervisor Lee James said the factory was a family-owned business at one time and they called it the Farnsworth Cookie Company. That was sold to the Stauffer Biscuit Company, whoc closed the factory in 2017. The family then sold the building to Ackerman. It has been closed for five years.
Police showed photos of the factory and had mug shots of those arrested.
“Another thing we found in the investigation in the factory were the manufacturing of the apparatus to ingest the canibus and some gummies to inges,” Chief Burch said. “It’s important because that is what is being funneled into our school systems and a lot of younger kids are getting their hands on it.”
Allegany County Undersheriff Walt Mackney, who ran the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force for years, said this was the largest bust in county history and in the top three in Southern Tier history. He said there were dogs running around the facility and he was concerned fecal matter was in the marijuana.
Chuef Burch added, “This was not a legitimate workforce, they did not have a permit to operate and this was completely unsanitary and in a deplorable state. They were in the stages of setting up a lab to manufacture their own synthetic cannabis or cannabis oil. We had a lot of agencies coming together in this case and we all worked together well, and of course we kept the district attorney’s office in the loop on everything and having the district attorney respond was helpful as well.”
As police built the case over a year, Chief Burch said, “Public safety is always a concern of ours, but we did not think this was a threat. “
Allegany County Sheriff Scott Cicirello praised the Cuba Police Department for their drug task force and working with other agencies. But he also said the drug problem still exists.
“We have a serious drug problem in this county and I think everyone knows it,” Cicirello said. “While we struggle to find a way to approach and deal with these issues, this was a model way of a local police department doing a fantastic job, finding the resources and the support that they need to conduct a full-scale investigation like this culminating in an arrest and seizure of drug paraphernalia.
Burch said the sheriff’s drone team was an asset as well and praised the partnership with the county.
