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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- An undocumented worker who played a minor role in a large marijuana farm discovered in Big Cottonwood Canyon is going to prison.
A judge sentenced Jose Hernandez-Ibarra to three years in prison this week and ordered him deported after serving the sentence.
Hernandez-Ibarra was arrested back in July after a hiker in Big Cottonwood Canyon stumbled onto an elaborate irrigation system. Several people fled when police arrived and Hernandez-Ibarra was the only one caught.
Police discovered about nine-thousand marijuana plants in the area.
Hernandez-Ibarra arrived just days before his July arrest and got a job on the farm checking the pipes for leaks. The judge reduced the sentence as much as possible saying he was a "minimum participant" in the operation.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
