Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thevortext/120482791/">Alexandra Moss</a>
You’d think a wealthy hedge-fund type wouldn’t need side gigs to keep the cash coming in. Not Tara Bryson, an executive with Connecticut-based New Stream Capital, a $1 billion lending fund whose list of clients includes celebs like Elizabeth Taylor and Kathy Ireland. According to Forbes, Bryson was recently arrested by Connecticut State Police on felony charges for allegedly operating a year-round pot farm inside her house. Specifically, the charges were possession of marijuana, cultivation of marijuana, and conspiracy to cultivate marijuana. (Bryson pleaded not guilty, and was released on $25,000 bail.)
Here’s more from Forbes:
State police narcotics task force reports say the residence was “a complex marijuana cultivation operation capable of producing a marijuana crop year round.” The Newtown Bee, which first reported the arrest, on August 13th, said police seized a portable air conditioner, a carbon dioxide generator and motorized track lighting system, as well as a growing ledger, financial records, and a personal computer. Police said electric bills for the property were far larger than would be expected for the near-6,000 square foot home. Bryson bought it in May 2009. Public records list its worth at $1.15 million.
Reached at home, [Bryson’s boyfriend Michael] Hearl called the charges “bogus,” and said “we didn’t have that many plants”…Bryson declined to comment.
If they’re weren’t growing pot, then what were they doing? According to Hearl, the pair were actually goat farmers. Yep, that’s right. They even have website for their goat operation, with which they’d planned to produce goat cheese and milk, now under construction. Not only that but they received a $49,999 grant from the state to launch their goat farm. Ah, the sweet aroma of, um, entrepreneurship.
