USC STUDENT ARRESTED ON DRUG-SELLING CHARGES

May Be Connected To Rave Deaths

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A university student arrested on suspicion of selling
LSD to federal agents claimed to have sold drugs to the five teens who died
on their way home from a rave concert, the undercover agents said.

"I was selling the snow cones they ate and right after they ate my snow
cones they plunged to their deaths," Hugh McLetchie allegedly told someone
during a phone conversation in front of an agent who was wearing a wire.

"The drugs I sold them did it to them," he reportedly said.

McLetchie, a 21-year-old University of Southern California student, was
arrested Friday and ordered held without bail despite his attorney's pleas
to let McLetchie attend classes next week. Federal authorities began
investigating McLetchie in February after being told he was selling LSD to
fellow students.

McLetchie was accused of selling 11,200 dosage units of the hallucinogenic
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide from Feb. 22 to Sept. 2.

After his arrest, McLetchie told the agents he had attended a rave party
Aug. 28 and said he sold LSD from a snowcone concession stand run by an
acquaintance, according to a DEA statement.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey W. Johnson set arraignment for Sept. 20.

Five teen-agers died Aug. 29 when their car left an S-shaped curve on a road
in the Angeles National Forest and plunged 1,200 feet. They were on their
way home from an all-night rave party that drew about 5,000 people to the
Snowcrest Snow Park ski resort inside the national forest northeast of Los
Angeles.

"He knows what he did," Johnson said, pointing at McLetchie. "What is
particularly egregious is the fact that this defendant, less than 48 hours
after these children's tragic deaths, was taking credit for it."

Toxicology tests from the crash victims' bodies are expected to take weeks.
Investigators found no signs of drugs or alcohol in the victims' car.

McLetchie's attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Pedro Castillo said
prosecutors were taking "a total leap in logic" trying to connect the
defendant to the five deaths.

"I think what the government is trying to do here is bring out a lot of
emotion and prejudice in this case," Castillo said.

There was no telephone listing in Pasadena for McLetchie, who also goes by
the first name Scotty. USC doesn't allow access to student listings to
anyone other than faculty, staff and current students.

McLetchie told the magistrate that his parents were from the Boston area.
There was no McLetchie in the Boston telephone listings.

McLetchie also told the magistrate he was a member of the Screen Actors
Guild and is making money from several commercials in which he has appeared.
A call after business hours to SAG was answered by a recording saying the
office was closed for the Labor Day holiday.