Locals convicted in U.S.'s biggest acid bust Locals convicted in U.S.'s biggest acid bust (April 04, 2003)

Men had Mountain View lab confiscated in '98

After an 11-week jury trial in Kansas, two Bay Area men have been convicted on drug charges relating to one of the largest LSD lab seizures in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice reported Monday.

Mill Valley resident William Leonard Pickard, 57, and Sunnyvale resident Clyde Apperson, 47, have been linked to three of the biggest LSD lab busts in U.S. history, including a 1998 seizure in Mountain View.

According to court testimony, the two men were in the process of moving the illegal drug lab in Wamego, Kan. when they were stopped by the Kansas Highway Patrol in November 2000. Apperson was arrested driving the rental truck containing the lab, while Pickard, who was driving a second vehicle, fled on foot and was arrested the following day at a farm outside town.

Stephen Delgado, special agent in charge with the DEA's San Francisco Division, and United States Attorney Eric Melgren of the District of Kansas announced that Pickard and Apperson were found guilty Monday of one count of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute more than 10 grams of LSD from August 1999 through November 2000 and one count of possession with the intent to distribute more than 10 grams of LSD on Nov. 6, 2000, the day they were stopped by the Highway Patrol.

Melgren said that, according to testimony given during the trial, this was the largest LSD lab seizure ever made by the Drug Enforcement Administration. DEA agents seized about 41.3 kilograms, almost 52 pounds, of iso-LSD -- a by-product from the manufacture of LSD.

Evidence presented during the trial established that in the history of the DEA, there have only been four seizures of complete LSD labs, three of which involved Pickard and Apperson, including the lab in Mountain View in 1998. The two also had a lab in Oregon in addition to this one in Kansas.

Pickard and Apperson now each face a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in federal prison without the possibility of parole when they are sentenced on Aug. 8 in Kansas.
-- Bay City News