JESSUP MAN SENTENCED FOR SELLING DRUG DILUTING AGENT TO DEALERS

Kingpin Law Applied For Providing Paraphernalia

In the first case of its kind in the nation, a Jessup businessman was
sentenced to 20 years in federal prison yesterday for selling a candy
sweetener to drug dealers who used it to dilute up to $500 million worth of
heroin for street sales.

John David Anderson, 37, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Baltimore
by Judge Benson E. Legg after being convicted in December under the drug
kingpin law, which until this case had been applied only to people who
distribute drugs.

Their mother, Wilhelmina Anderson, 56, also of Glen Arm Road, was found
guilty of the same charge and will be sentenced Monday.

"This says you don't have to be directly involved in the distribution of
drugs to feel the sting of sentencing in federal court," said Assistant
U.S. Attorney Martin J. Clarke, who helped to prosecute the case. "There
was no evidence of drugs being distributed by the defendant [John
Anderson]. All he did was provide drug paraphernalia."

John Anderson and his family imported a substance from Italy called
mannitol, a commercial food sweetener that is used in confections and is
the white powder dusted over sticks of chewing gum.

Mannitol also is widely used by illegal drug dealers in combination with
quinine to dilute heroin.

According to the U.S. Customs Service, Anderson's firm, Outland
Distribution Co., imported 28,778 pounds of mannitol between February 1997
and January 2000.

Anderson and his family owned several retail stores in areas of Baltimore
known for drug trafficking, where they sold mannitol for $180 per pound and
quinine for $300 per pound.

Anderson, who said he is innocent, contended that the word drugs should not
have been introduced during his trial because he did not deal in them.

"I never dealt no drugs, but drugs was all in the case," he said at
sentencing yesterday. "I mean, how did that happen?"