JUDGE HANDS DOWN GUILTY VERDICT IN INTERNET DRUG CASE

Kevin and Ronald Brown of Tennessee Made More Than $800,000 Selling
Toxic Industrial Solvent

Kevin and Ronald Brown hit the jackpot when they schemed to run a vast
chemical distribution company out of a Tennessee basement, cutting an
industrial solvent with other ingredients and hawking the volatile
potion over the Internet for up to $75 per 16.9-ounce bottle.

By their own admission, their slice of what had become a cottage
industry made them more than $800,000 in a little more than a year,
reaching some 1,300 clients in 47 states plus Puerto Rico -- people
seeking a muscle enhancer or sex aid or simply to get high.

But a federal judge in Mobile ruled Tuesday that the brothers knew or
should have known that the chemical 1,4 butanediol, or BD, was nearly
identical to one banned by Congress and that selling it to people as a
drug was against the law.

U.S. District Judge Charles Butler Jr. handed down a ruling Tuesday
convicting the Browns following a three-day, non-jury trial that ended
June 2. The trial is believed to be the first associated with
Operation Webslinger, a nationwide sting last fall targeting Internet
sales of BD and related drugs.

In Webslinger, authorities arrested more than 100 people in about 90
cities in the United States and Canada. The sweep stemmed largely from
initial undercover purchases of BD that investigators in Mobile made
from the Browns after the drug showed up in Dauphin Street nightclubs,
authorities said.

BD and two chemical relatives -- gamma hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB and
gamma butyrolactone, or GBL -- are all industrial solvents, although
GBL has been approved for limited use to treat symptoms of insomnia.
The drugs are collectively called "scoop" and "liquid X" on the
street, where they are abused as body-building supplements, sexual
stimulants and to incapacitate potential rape victims.

The Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act of March 2000 made GHB a controlled
substance. The human body converts both GBL and BD into GHB upon
ingestion. One of the Browns' customers, a Tennessee dentist, died
after consuming an unknown quantity of BD. Prosecutors agreed not to
pursue that aspect of the case when the Browns agreed to admit most of
the allegations against them.

Prior to the enactment of the law, Kevin Brown advertised his BD
concoction on his Web site, touting it as an aid to dieting, sleeping
and weightlifting and included recommended doses. After the law took
effect, he and his brother sold the same product in the same packaging
but advertised it as a cleaner for silk-screen and ink-jet cartridges,
court records state.

The Browns acknowledged almost everything prosecutors alleged about
their operation, except for a key detail: They contended BD and GHB
are not "substantially similar," a legal nuance on which the entire
case hinged.

Butler heard from a pair of govern ment chemists and a defense
scientist, John Steele, during the trial. In his 21-page written
verdict, which came complete with molecular diagrams, he ripped
Steele's credentials, refusing to deem him an expert and pointing out
that he was a botanist, not a chemist, by training.

In his uncharacteristically acid order, the judge concluded Steele
had, "in a move that would make Las Vegas odds-makers and Enron
accountants proud," deliberately manipulated the test he performed
comparing BD and GHB in order to reach a predetermined conclusion --
that they were not substantially similar.

"The net effect of this manipulation was to skew the equation before
the (test) even started," Butler wrote.

Defense lawyers in the case assailed the testimony from the government
experts, who testified they felt, based on comparing diagrams, that
the chemicals were nearly the same.

"I just don't see how the government meets its burden with its expert
suggesting things like, 'It's their gut feeling.' That's not
scientific," said federal defender Carlos Williams, Ronald Brown's
lawyer.

The dentist's death was not an issue in the trial, but Williams said,
and prosecutors acknowledged, that the man took the drug
voluntarily.

"This is sold on the market right now as a cleaner," Williams said.
"If you decide you're going to go into your kitchen cabinet and drink
whatever, are we going to go arrest everybody?"

Ronald Brown faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, while his
brother is looking at a slightly longer term because he first sold the
drug by himself and therefore sold more of it, their lawyers said. The
brothers are set for sentencing in October.