Mendocino’s sheriff is treasurer of a private nonprofit that funds the county’s trafficking raids

In May, Mendocino County sheriff’s deputies found a man at an illegal cannabis grow near Navarro who told them he had been forced to live and work there for two years, without pay. Two months later, a July 25 news release announcing three and a half weeks of raids farther north listed the same issues at several of the sites: no identification documents, “little or no meaningful pay,” little or no freedom to leave.

The same release put numbers on the operation: 173,244 plants pulled near Covelo, Laytonville, Potter Valley and Redwood Valley, 26 guns seized, more than 30 sites investigated. Investigators had “contacted victims of suspected forced labor trafficking,” it said. It didn’t say how many, or what became of them.