Andrea Sanderlin, Scarsdale mom, indicted in $3M pot operation

A 45-year-old Scarsdale woman was indicted Tuesday on charges of manufacturing and distributing more than $3 million in marijuana, as prosecutors compared her to Colombian druglords and blasted her for being a bad role model for her three children.

Andrea Sanderlin was arrested May 20 after federal agents, who had been watching her for some time, stopped her car and brought her to the Queens warehouse where they say she ran a sophisticated marijuana grow operation. That operation, authorities said, included an indoor irrigation system, high-tech lamps to simulate sunlight and a ventilation system. Agents found nearly 3,000 marijuana plants growing under those lamps, drying out or being prepped for packaging at the industrial warehouse on 57th Drive.

In a case that has been compared with the Showtime series "Weeds," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, the prosecutor in the case, chided Sanderlin for choosing a life of crime.

"Sanderlin could have focused her talents on building a legitimate business enterprise to support her family and serve as a role model for her children," Lynch wrote in a statement announcing Sanderlin's indictment.

Authorities valued the seized marijuana at "in excess of $3 million" according to initial estimates by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The investigation began with a tip from a confidential informant who knew the Scarsdale mom only as "Andi." Authorities quickly built their case. They discovered enormous electric bills that indicated illicit activity inside Sanderlin's most recently acquired warehouse, and at least two other locations where the feds believe she previously culitivated pot plants.

Those electric bills exceeded $9,000 a month, and authorities said Sanderlin still owed Con Edison a combined $14,000 in outstanding payments at warehouse locations in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Joel Winograd, a Manhattan-based attorney who represents Sanderlin, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

In statements after his client's arrest was announced on June 4, Winograd maintained the Scarsdale mom's innocence.

Neighbors and acquaintances told Newsday they had no inkling Sanderlin was involved in the drug trade, and Sanderlin's former in-laws said they hadn't heard from her in years.

Sanderlin, who rented a $2.8 million, five-bedroom mansion on Scarsdale's Saxon Woods Drive, said she worked "in interior design in the city," according to Scott Tarter, a stable owner at Twin Lakes Farm in Bronxville where Sanderlin rode horses with her 13-year-old daughter about three times a week.

Despite her seemingly normal life, Sanderlin faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and as much as $10 million in fines if she's convicted of manufacturing and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute it and maintaining a drug-involved premises.

"There's really no difference whether you're a suburban mom growing marijuana in a warehouse in Queens, or a cartel member making cocaine in the jungles of Colombia. Manufacturing and distributing illegal narcotics comes at a hefty price when you are caught by law enforcement," James T. Hayes, special-agent-in-charge at Homeland Security Investigations, said in a statement Tuesday.