DISTRIBUTOR OF CHEMICALS USED IN METH GETS LIFE

Drugs: In A Widely Watched Case, Las Vegas Man Is Sentenced For Supplying
Ingredients Used By Others To Manufacture 'Speed' For Sale In Southland.

In the conclusion of a pioneering California drug case, a Las Vegas
man has been sentenced to life in prison for possessing the
ingredients for making methamphetamine--without any evidence that he
had actually cooked the drug.

The case of Jessie Rodriguez Barron, 49, has long been viewed as
significant by authorities attempting to stifle the proliferation of
methamphetamine, particularly in inland regions of Southern California.

When Barron was indicted in June 1994, law enforcement officers were
still struggling with a maddening facet of their fight against
"speed": Its ingredients, taken alone and used under different
circumstances, are legal. Pseudoephedrine, for instance, a primary
ingredient, is a decongestant; hydriodic acid has a variety of
industrial uses, such as cleaning metal. Authorities alleged that in
the early 1990s, Barron was a key player in a group that sold more
than 40,000 gallons of hydriodic acid to methamphetamine "cooks."
According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael J. Stern, there was no
evidence that Barron himself had manufactured methamphetamine, but the
chemicals he bought and sold were used to make batches of meth sold
throughout the Inland Empire and the Los Angeles area.

The U.S. attorney's office filed charges that were viewed as unusual
by the law enforcement community. Until then, Stern said, few people
who had been caught with the ingredients of meth in California--but
didn't produce it--had been charged with a crime.

Barron was believed the first in California to be charged in federal
court under the legal theory that his sales of a "precursor chemical"
constituted a conspiracy to assist in the production of
methamphetamine, Stern said.

Barron fled to Las Vegas after he was indicted and lived there until
his arrest last year, authorities said Tuesday. Because of the delay
in his case, many others have since been charged, convicted and
sentenced under the same legal theory.

The case is still seen as a significant one in the battle against
methamphetamine, Stern said. It ended late Monday when U.S. District
Judge Dickran Tevrezian sentenced Barron to life in prison without the
possibility of parole.

"For years, until this case, people were not getting indicted when
they were distributing the chemicals," Stern said.

"They were supporting the manufacture of meth. But it was only the
people who were manufacturing the meth who were being charged."

Proving in court that someone not only possessed the chemicals but
knew what they would be used for remains a challenge, Stern said.

"There is nothing wrong with simply having a gallon drum of hydriodic
acid," he said. "It becomes more of a hurdle to show that, not only
did they possess this stuff but show that they were acting in
conjunction with people who were intending to make the drugs."

The case marked the beginning of a trend in the fight against meth,
said Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, the methamphetamine
coordinator for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

In 1996, two years after Barron was indicted, drug agents and
prosecutors refined their strategy, moving to aggressively target
chemical suppliers.

"Since then, there has been a sea change in the extent to which the
chemical suppliers are indicted and investigated and prosecuted,"
Fitzgerald said.

Barron's defense attorney could not be reached for comment
Tuesday.

According to the indictment against Barron, filed in U.S. District
Court, Barron and several other people, including his brother, created
two front companies to purchase hydriodic acid in the early 1990s.

To persuade chemical wholesalers to sell him the acid, Barron went
through an exhaustive process to fraudulently transfer ownership of
several defunct gold mines in the Mojave Desert to himself. He then
claimed to the chemical wholesalers that he planned to use the
hydriodic acid in mining operations.

Barron also used the phony companies to launder more than $1 million
in illicit proceeds through various banks in the Los Angeles area,
Stern said.