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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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First in nation judgment on methamphetamine materials case
Wednesday April 02, 2003
SACRAMENTO (AP) Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they
obtained a first-in-the-nation judgment against a small Stockton
convenience store that bought extraordinary amounts of
decongestants that could be used to manufacture methamphetamine.
In six months, the Cherokee Market bought more than 6,500
bottles containing more than 544,000 tablets of a nasal
decongestant containing pseudoephedrine, which can be used to make
the illegal street drug methamphetamine.
That's 53 times what such a store would be expected to purchase,
prosecutors said, citing 1997 Economic Census data.
On a single day, the market spent more than $6,000 to buy more
than 700 bottles of the drug from two distributors, they alleged.
The government sued the market and owner Dien Jim Nguyen, 42,
settling the case for $50,000 and a permanent, lifetime injunction
against his sale of the drug or any other than could be used to
make methamphetamine.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration said it's the first
time a civil forfeiture action was used against a retail market for
its sale of the drug.
The resolution follows civil prosecutions against Cherokee
Market's two distributors.
A jury in July ordered $441,000 in civil penalties against Grab
Bag Distributing and owner Rodney Nickerson, 66, of Modesto. The
government obtained a $225,000 judgment against the other
distributor, C.W. Brower of Modesto.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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