When William Leonard Pickard was arrested by the DEA in November 2000, agents allegedly seized enough acid for 400 million trips from his missile silo lab in Kansas.
DEAPickard was given two life sentences to be dish at the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson , Arizona .
On Nov. 6 , 2000 , Kansas Highway Patrol pulled over a Buick LaSabre in a routine traffic stop . When the elevator car came to a arrest , its equipment driver , 58 - yr - erstwhile Willliam Leonard Pickard take to the woods from the fit and leave behind drug and other appurtenance . The next 24-hour interval , constabulary get Pickard and made the large LSD bust in U.S. history .
William Leonard Pickard’s Early Life
William Leonard Pickard was born on Oct. 21 , 1945 , to wealthy parent . His father was an lawyer and his mother was a fungal disease research worker with the CDC . Pickard was a talented student and jock , and he garner a scholarship to Princeton .
Though he excel in mellow school he did not find the same winner in college and he drop out after his first semester . He found a sexual love of jazz in off - campus order before taking a job at the University of California , Berkeley .
For the next three age Pickard work on in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology , but it is indecipherable what he did after 1974 . Somewhere between leaving college and start at UCLA , Pickard was introduced to the drug scene , and it is believe that his post - academic focus shifted to drugs for a full point of prison term .
DEAPickard was given two life sentences to be served at the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.
Pickard’s First Brush With The Law Was Also Over LSD-Manufacturing
Some score say that Pickard learned to make up MDA and transferred his knowledge to LSD during the latter half of the 1970s . No one have it away for sure where he began his operation , but on Dec. 28 , 1988 , he was arrested in Mountain View , California , after neighbors reported a chemical scent coming from an industrial commons .
When Union agentive role arrived , Pickard was found inside a edifice surrounded by 200,000 does of LSD . The trailer he was manufacturing the LSD in was equipped with high - technical school equipment that made gel , tablet , and paper interlingual rendition of the drug .
Pickard was arrest and sentenced to five years in a federal prison house . In those five years , he became a Buddhist , but upon his exit he riposte to his manufacturing .
Public DomainPickard never kept his operation in one place for long.
William Leonard Pickard’s Operation Is Infilitrated By An Informant
Public DomainPickard never preserve his mathematical process in one plaza for long .
To avoid another stay , Pickard never stayed in one area for more than a few age . In the 1990s , he moved his lab numerous times . set off in Oregon , he moved to Aspen , Colorado and to Santa Fe , New Mexico .
He demanded that his electrical distributor change out declamatory bill and he never keep great sum of money around . He also never let on where his lab was located , and would get off directly to his customer or have them pick up product in a nearby city .
Public DomainWilliam Leonard Pickard became known as the Acid King after his 1998 arrest.
In February 1998 , Pickard and his mate Clyde Apperson were introduced to Gordon Todd Skinner , supposedly at the household of Jerry Garcia . The triad worked closely together from their first meeting until Pickard ’s infamous arrest in 2000 . Little did they know , however , that Skinner was working with the federal government activity .
While Pickard and Apperson were out of town , Skinner moved the lab out of its location near the Atlas E projectile silo in Kansas . Upon his return , the ternary began project to move the rest of the operation to the Modern location .
The Arrest And Trial Of William Leonard Pickard
Public DomainWilliam Leonard Pickard became known as the Acid King after his 1998 arrest .
While Pickard was gone , Union agents were kick in inside info by their source — none other than Gordon Todd Skinner . Skinner let the DEA into the science lab to look for grounds used to secure a hunting guarantee , which a federal evaluator sign on before Pickard had returned back to the silo website a few days afterward .
Pickard and Apperson begin moving the lab from the silo site in two vehicles . Apperson , who was paid a handsome total to put up and tear down the lab during moves , drove a Ryder rental truck . Pickard drove the Buick LaSabre .
Kansas Highway Patrol was enlist by the DEA to pluck them over to avoid suspicion , but the men immediately know something was incorrect . Pickard fled the shot on foot , and as a marathon runner , was able to escape seizure for a full day .
During the run , it was revealed that the lab produced almost a kilogram of LSD every five weeks , which was estimated to be worth $ 40 million on the street . Pickard maintain he did not trade on the street , only to wholesaler , which lowered the value considerably . Pickard calculate the value to be less than $ 3 million at wholesale cost .
Pickard and Apperson were happen hangdog of collude to manufacture , distribute , and parcel out ten g or more of LSD . Apperson received a 30 - year sentence and Pickard was given two life sentence . Pickard was change to the U.S. Penitentiary at Tucson , Arizona soon after .
While in prison house , Pickard returned to his academic endeavour . He learned about civil liberties , the justice system , and about other drugs . He also taught a fellow inmate how to read and published his own book of account , The Rose of Paracelsus .
In late interviews and write work , Pickard debate against the impression that the end of his military operation was the single intellect there was a fall in LSD gross sales . He argue that the drug was on the decline already because of the demand for MDMA and other drug and that LSD sale had never had a centralised operation .
Pickard was given compassionate release on July 27 , 2020 . The court cited his historic period and medical conditions as being a risk constituent with the spread of COVID-19 . Apperson was also release on time served .
Today , William Leonard Pickard continues to write and inquiry about the effect of psychedelics , and ostensibly has no interest in shake his public epitome as the Acid King .
After get word about William Leonard Pickard , take about5 dangerous and illegal drugs that doctors once prescribed as aesculapian curative . Then , explorehow Adolfo Constanzo go from catholic boy to drug monger – then to Satanic cult - Leading serial cause of death .
