Two more men pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday for their part in a criminal conspiracy to steal at least 1,000 pounds of pseudoephedrine from a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Kansas City and use the score to manufacture more than $40 million worth of meth. The heist was timed to coincide with Super Bowl XLI.
Long story short: The crime involved hiding in the facility, handcuffing a security guard at gunpoint, stealing a lot of pseudoephedrine, and drug dealers growing so suspicious of each that the backstabbing brings the whole drug-dealing house of cards crashing to the ground.
Garland Duane Hankins and Blake William Folsom entered pleas before a
U.S. District Court judge separately.
Hankins, 42, of Oak Grove, worked for a business that contracted with the Sanofi-Aventis facility to remove pseudoephedrine waste from the facility. He admitted to stealing pseudoephedrine waste from Sanofi-Aventis for a decade and selling it for $3,000 to $10,000 per pound.
Among the buyers was Folsom, 42, of Raytown, who police found with parts of a meth lab and 512 grams of pharmaceutical grade pseudoephedrine powder when they searched his home in April 2007.
Besides Hankins and Folsom, co-defendants Ryan Edward Breit, 32, of Peculiar, Mo., Harley William Harvey, Jr., 42, of Blue Springs, Mo., Mindy Lynn Morris, 32, of Platte City, Mo., Kristi L. Stephenson, 37, of Kansas City, Mo., Julie Ann Weber Hankins Torneden, 45, of Lone Jack, Mo., Gina Louise Vigliaturo, 31, of Independence, Mo., and Robert Bruce Jameson, 47, of Kansas City, Mo., have all pleaded guilty to charges in the indictment.
Hankins is subject ot a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years
in federal prison without parole, and a maximum of a life sentence,
plus a fine up to $4 million.
Folsom could serve up to 20
years in federal prison without parole on each of two counts he entered
pleas on, plus a fine of $250,000 on each count.
The United States Probation Office must complete pre-sentencing investigations before sentencing hearings can be scheduled.
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