LA Times URL:
http://www.latimes.com/editions/valley/sfnews/20010414/t000031754.html

SISTERS GUILTY IN IODINE CRYSTAL CASE

Courts: The 'Lancaster Grannies' Are First To Be Convicted Under New State
Law. They Vow To Appeal.

LANCASTER--After a 12-day criminal trial and four days of
deliberations, a jury on Friday found the "Lancaster Grannies" guilty
of failing to properly record sales of iodine crystals at their
40-year-old feed store in the Antelope Valley.

Sisters Armitta Mae Granicy, 60, Dorothy Jean Manning, 67, and Ramona
Ann Beck, 62, are the first to be tried under a 1998 state law
requiring merchants to keep detailed records on buyers of iodine
crystals, used to treat hoof disease in horses--and to make
methamphetamine.

The jury also found Manning guilty on one count of selling more than 8
ounces of iodine crystals to an individual in a 30-day period.

The sisters, who last month refused a deal that would have kept them
out of jail, are scheduled to be sentenced May 31 by Los Angeles
County Superior Court Judge David Mintz. They face up to six months in
jail and a $1,000 fine for each misdemeanor offense.

Jurors acquitted the fourth defendant, Robert Roy Granicy, 63,
Armitta's husband. The couple own and operate Granicy's Valley Wide
Feed in the Antelope Valley.

Speaking for her family, Armitta Granicy on Friday credited jurors,
calling them "more than fair" but said the judge left them "nowhere to
go but guilty."

"He did away with all our defenses," she said. "We could not defend
ourselves."

Granicy said she and her family do not regret passing on the
prosecution's deal, which would have required them to stop selling the
iodine crystals.

"We would not change it now," she said. "Never. We're not
sorry.

"From the beginning, we put ourselves in the Lord's hands and we have
no intention of taking it out of His hands," Granicy said. "We will
appeal. And we will win."

Prosecutor Robert Sherwood said the state law is intended to make it
more difficult for people to manufacture methamphetamines by requiring
iodine sales be recorded.

"If we can get store owners to comply with the law, we can make a
difference," he said.

"We are not targeting little old ladies," Sherwood said. "This is
serious business. Methamphetamine is a real problem out here."

He said the women were warned by police before they were charged with
the crimes. "They flat-out refused to follow the law," he said, "and
left us no choice.

But defense lawyers said they plan to challenge the
verdicts.

"These are good people who have been treated unfairly by the judicial
system," said Alison Bloom, the Granicys' attorney.

She said she will challenge the law's constitutionality as well as key
rulings by the judge that she said limited her clients' defenses.

"We will not rest until this travesty of justice is overturned," said
Robert Sheahen, who represented Beck and Manning. "They felt they had
been denied a fair trial."

Bloom said they were not allowed to argue that her clients broke the
law out of necessity.

"They thought they were asked to be police informants and it was
dangerous" to ask customers to provide the required information, she
said. "She had a good-faith belief that taking down the information
put herself and her family in danger."

Iodine crystals, sold by the ounce, have been used for decades to
treat hoof disease in horses and to purify stored water. More
recently, they have been used to manufacture methamphetamine, a
powerful and illegal stimulant.

A task force in 1999 shut down 68 suspected meth labs in the north
county area, triple the number of the previous year, according to the
state attorney general's office.

Distributors for feed dealers and saddleries say many in California
have stopped selling the crystals because they do not want to be
bothered with the required record-keeping. Investigators said they
cracked down on Granicy's after the veteran shopkeepers repeatedly
refused to produce records.

Granicy's sold about 16,000 ounces of iodine crystals in a 15-month
period--or triple the amount typically sold by similar outlets, said
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Tom Holeman.