ALL CHARGES DROPPED IN SUGAR FACTORY METH CASE

Loveland resident Jeremy Chad Myers walked from a district courtroom
Thursday with tears in his eyes and said he feels "as innocent as ever."

Myers considers himself vindicated because 8th Judicial District
prosecutors dropped all drug charges against him for what three
reports show is a false accusation he was cooking and using
methamphetamine in his home at the old sugar factory in Loveland.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation tests on substances seized by the
Larimer County Drug Task Force seized after a no-knock raid in
September all came back "no controlled substances;" no amphetamine, no
ephedrine, for which initial on-site screens tested positive.

Myers also voluntarily submitted to a hair follicle test, which will
reveal if a person has used or been around drugs for 90 days. He passed.

And Century Environmental Hygiene, a company in Fort Collins certified
to test for meth hazards, found no indications of the drug in the home
or in the surrounding soil.

Myers father, Jim, who owns the property and paid for the test, also
teared up at the thought of his son's freedom and expressed anger at
what he and his son have been put through.

"It's been total hell," he said.

Jeremy has nearly lost his business as a self-employed back-hoe
operator and has had to sell his equipment.

Jim had to pay to have the property tested and posted $75,000 in bonds
for his son.

And they have faced the rumors and talk in Loveland, the community
they call home.

Because of all this, Myers said he is considering suing the Drug Task
Force to send them a message.

"Maybe they'll consider more carefully what they do," Jim Myers
said.

The task force zeroed in on Myers after a confidential informant gave
them information pointing to Myers, said his defense attorney Linda
Miller. That process, working information out of someone else accused
of drug charges, is faulty because they are pressured to give police a
name to lessen their own troubles, she said.

After the tip, undercover detectives began watching Myers' home at the
old sugar factory. They searched his trash and placed two surveillance
cameras trained on the house. Miller wants those surveillance tapes
preserved for the Myers as they consider a possible lawsuit.

Judge Terence Gilmore, after dismissing the case, ordered prosecutors
to do just that.

The test results from CBI were a surprise to Loveland Detective Brian
Koopman, who headed the investigation and search of Myers' property.
When faced with the results at the initial preliminary hearing Nov. 5,
Koopman admitted he had not seen the results.

"It was a surprise to him," confirmed Koopman's boss, Lt. Craig Dodd,
who commands the drug task force. "Everything we saw on that scene was
indicative of a meth lab."

And the presumptive tests, initial on-scene screens, twice came up
positive for amphetamine in a jar of white crystallized substance
found in a storage shed (property Myers said is owned by neighboring
Amalgamated Sugar and not him) and as ephedrine in a jar of bi-level
fluid drug officers said looked like a cook in progress.

Those tests are just presumptive and are always followed by lab tests,
but are rarely incorrect, according to Dodd.

"I don't think we've ever had a false positive," he said after the
last hearing. "But you can get them. (The test) is just a piece of the
puzzle, so to speak."

The lab tests revealed what the seized items aren't but not what they
are. Each test screens for a specific substance that officers believe
will be found; a generic, identifying test was not conducted.

Jim Myers thinks the white substance found in a jar in Amalgamated
Sugar's shed was old sugar, and as for the jar of bi-level fluid, he
still doesn't know.

"It's been there since we bought the building in 1989," Myers said. "I
have no idea what it is."

But he knows what it is not: Methamphetamine.