LOS ANGELES - (INT) - A former police officer whose garage explosion revealed a makeshift lab where he used butane to extract hashish oil containing tetrahydrocannabinol, or “THC,” from marijuana plants, was sentenced to five years in federal prison Monday.

Joseph Jay Spadafore, 64, of Menifee was convicted by a federal jury of maintaining a drug-envolved premises.

A jury heard evidence that Spadafore converted a house into a drug lab where he extracted hashish oil containing THC from marijuana plants using a dangerous process involving butane, a highly flammable gas. Neighbors reported a loud explosion just before midnight on November 3, 2017, and a call from Spadafore himself at the house in a residential neighborhood at Lake Elsinore.

At the time of the explosion and subsequent fire, Spadafore was the only person living at the house, which the homeowner believed had been rented to a different man.

Spadafore was an LAPD officer from 1976 to 1991.

Story Date: June 23, 2018