MBA-TOTING COCAINE DEALER SENTENCED TO PRISON

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A management consultant who made cocaine deals
in a grocery store parking lot in the city's fashionable West Hills
has been sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Michael F. Hipps' clientele included "Portland's upper crust," police
said when they arrested him last June.

Hipps, 48, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deliver and possess
significant quantities of cocaine. In exchange, prosecutors dropped 10
counts of drug delivery and possession.

"I was caught up in the drug culture and developed an addiction to
cocaine," Hipps said in a letter Monday to Multnomah County Circuit
Judge Julie Frantz. "There is no excuse for what I did, but I truly am
sorry."

A black book found in Hipps' home last June contained names "in the
medical profession" and people who worked out at the private Multnomah
Athletic Club, police said.

But it appeared that David B. Peters, a former Multnomah County deputy
district attorney, was the only one prosecuted among those named in
the address books. Peters pleaded guilty to a violation and was fined
$100.

However, based on Hipps' cooperation, a Washington County couple was
sent to jail for supplying him with drugs. And a federal grand jury
last month indicted a California couple who allegedly sold Hipps his
drug business.

Adam Wylie, 33, was sentenced last month to 13 months in prison for
running Hipps' cocaine business while Hipps was out of town. And two
men who bought drugs police had Wylie under surveillance completed
drug diversion and had the charges removed from their records.

So far, at least 11 people, including Hipps, have been
prosecuted.

Hipps, who has a master's in business administration, allegedly
purchased his cocaine business in late 1994 from Wayne David
Oppenheimer, 36, according to a federal indictment handed down July
15.

The indictment states that Oppenheimer was a street-level cocaine
dealer in Portland from the mid-1980s until 1994.

He allegedly sold his the drug business to Hipps before moving to
Napa, Calif., and later schemed to rip him off.

Oppenheimer allegedly told Hipps he had been paying police for
protection and Hipps would have to do the same. But Oppenheimer kept
the $27,000 Hipps gave him for police payoffs, and extorted another
$28,500 from Hipps in "summer bonuses" and hush money, the indictment
said.

The indictment also charges Oppenheimer's wife, Pamela Cosper
Oppenheimer, and Archie Lanning Blanks Jr., 41, a Portland resident,
with helping Oppenheimer to execute the bogus payoff scheme.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry