As reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have filed a joint complaint in the Eastern District of Missouri asking to seize the 350-acre Zoe Farm, “alleging rampant drug dealing and drug use at events.” According to the paper, “ investigators spent four years monitoring and interacting with concertgoers on the farm, witnessing drug use and completing open drug deals with participants during events. Officials allege that the owner and event operators were aware of the activity and ‘took no immediate action to prevent’ the sale and use of cocaine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, psilocybin mushrooms, opium and marijuana-laced food.”

Meanwhile, the facility has issued its own statement in response to the events:

Dear friends and family of Camp Zoe

We are sad to report the federal government is apparently attempting to shut down Camp Zoe. They raided the campground on Monday, November 1, 2010 around 7:30 a.m.. They had a search warrant looking for gate revenue from the Spookstock 9 (Oct. 29+30) festival weekend and any financial records. They came in with 70+ officers from the IRS, DEA, Homeland Security, Highway patrol, and local & regional police officers. They confiscated gate receipt money from the weekend that was not already deposited in the bank. They also confiscated some computers and some paperwork from the file cabinets in the offices onsite. One patron was arrested for previous warrants unrelated to Camp Zoe. The same day the DEA seized all the money in the Camp Zoe bank account – which included most of the gate receipts for the Spookstock 9 weekend. This money was to be used to pay staff, artists, security, production (lights & sound), trash pickup, etc. for the festival weekend. It was also to be used for the basic bills for Camp Zoe to get the business through the winter – mortgage, electric, insurance, phones, advertising, staff, etc. On November 8 they also filed an application to seize the Camp Zoe property. No arrest warrants have yet been issued for any of the Camp Zoe staff or owners. All of us at Camp Zoe are doing everything we can to prevent the land seizure and to get the money back they took from the business. We have hired a team of attorneys to represent us on all these matters. Many of you have already reached out to offer financial help as well as moral support. We do really appreciate it. There has been another account set up to collect donations to help pay for attorney fees and basic bills for Camp Zoe while all of this gets sorted out. Our goal is to prove our innocence and to stay in business.

Camp Zoe has put out a call for donations as it defends itself against these charges.