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Kansas man gets 7 years plus for bath salts.. before they were illegal

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villian

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Aug 28, 2003
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A Kansas man has been sent to federal prison for nearly eight years for possessing bath salts in Nebraska before they specifically were made illegal by state and federal law.

"This is not your run of the mill drug case," Steven Miles Sullivan's attorney, Glenn Shapiro, said at sentencing last week. "He thought he was complying with the law."

That's because when a deputy stopped Sullivan on Oct. 27, 2010, in Otoe County and Sullivan said he had K2 and a bag of bath salts in his vehicle neither was illegal.

Both are now, under both state and federal law.

Still, prosecutors said that at the time of the traffic stop the bath salts violated a federal law that prohibits possessing a "structural analogue" with intent to distribute.

In other words, they were substantially similar to the chemical structure of an illegal, controlled substance and had a substantially similar effect on the human body as the drug they mimicked.

Sullivan was indicted.

At trial in December, Shapiro argued that the Lawrence, Kan., man was an innocent wholesaler who legitimately bought the product online -- when it was legal -- to sell at truck stops and head shops, and he was up front with law enforcement about having it.

But the Nebraska jury found him guilty.

In court last week, Sullivan, 31, told the judge the whole thing left him highly shocked and confused.

"If I knew that this product was gonna land me in this position, in this courtroom … I never ever would have carried it," he said.

But U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said the defendant had a history of dealing drugs and thought he had found a way to do so without getting caught.

Over 11 years, Kopf said, Sullivan had 12 contacts with law enforcement, all but two involving controlled substances.

"It is an unusual case," Kopf agreed, but he said nothing about it warranted a sentence lower than federal guidelines called for and gave Sullivan seven years and eight months.
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Read more: http://journalstar.com/news/local/c...838-56ae-8a43-44f0ed6255de.html#ixzz1pgzlmq4l
 
Another reason to remember why you *never* talk to the police, even if you think you are within the letter of the law.
 
You look at the police as if they arent there when they are asking you questions............if they take you down town & try the method of a beating, hold your own......never ever let those bastards win.
 
ooh a federal analog law conviction. These are rare. Good find villian!

I'd like to read the transcript.
 
Ok but if it falls under the analouge act then why did they have to go back and pass specific state and federal laws? Its hard to say anymore without knowing exactly which chemicals they are talking about.
 
jazz hands said:
What drug was it? "Bath salts" doesn't say much.
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methylone and mephedrone (see pdf)

methylone of course being the beta-ketone analog of MDMA, and mephedrone being the para-methyl analog of methcathinone. A legal slam dunk if you ask me.
 
235360287471352662 said:
methylone and mephedrone (see pdf)

methylone of course being the beta-ketone analog of MDMA, and mephedrone being the para-methyl analog of methcathinone. A legal slam dunk if you ask me.
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Thanks for that! Dude should of kept his fucking mouth shut. According to the PDF he was telling the people he was selling to how much they needed to dose. That blows the whole "Not for human consumption" argument out of the water.
 
shitty wok! shouldn't have gone around telling ppl "how much to take"... so rare I haven't really found any analogue bust trasnscripts since operation web tryp
 
^I can't provide a link or anything, but I thought there were some successful analogue prosecutions of possession since 2004. I want to say it happened after finding a bunch of some analogue capsuled up alongside other illegal drugs in a car during a routine traffic stop (or similar situation where LE wasn't coming directly after the analogue). So far at least, the government goes after the low hanging fruit (stuff they know they can win). As most of us know, it is entirely possible to be arrested and tried for selling or possessing analogues even in tiny amounts under the right conditions. As far as I know the lack of prosecutions is almost entirely about the cost and practicality of enforcing analogue laws, and of course the fear of losing a case and setting a precedent against the government should they try prosecuting something more ambiguous than a dude selling mass quantities out in the open to gas stations that children frequent.
 
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