Federal lawsuit says KCSO destroyed researcher's hemp without warning or adequate testing

A $1-billion lawsuit filed Friday in federal court accuses Kern County and its Sheriff's Office of violating a local hemp grower's civil rights by wrongfully seizing plants for unscientific testing and then withholding public information about the crop's destruction.

Alleging the county carried out "one (of) the largest wholesale destructions of personal property by government entities in the history of the United States," the 58-page suit sheds new light on a conflict that has been brewing since the county ordered the bulldozing in late October of what it says were close to 500 acres of illegal marijuana growing in the Arvin area.