News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2005

WHITINSVILLE MAN SENTENCED FOR ECSTASY MANUFACTURING

Boston, MA... A Whitinsville man was sentenced yesterday in federal court for participating in a conspiracy to manufacture and sell ecstasy.

Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in New England and United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan , announced that GARY WEST, age 25, of Whitinsville, Massachusetts, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to 5 years’ imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. WEST pleaded guilty on February 24, 2004 to conspiring to manufacture and to possess ecstasy with the intent to distribute it.

At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that, had the case proceeded to trial, the Government’s evidence would have proven that WEST participated in a conspiracy with others, charged in the Indictment, in which they manufactured ecstasy in a basement laboratory underneath a trailer. The prosecutor told the Court that, given the amount of chemicals that the conspirators were buying, they would have been able to produce 20,000 ecstasy tablets in the laboratory.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, with assistance from the Massachusetts and the Connecticut State Police.