Clyde Apperson
Clyde Apperson a.k.a. C was arrested on November 6th, 2000 for running the largest illicit LSD manufacturing operation in the history of the United States with partner William Leonard Pickard. In 2003 Apperson was sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Court documents detail an extensive criminal record for Pickard, dating back to a 1964 charge of car theft in Georgia. Totalling more than 10 incidents, one as recently as December 1988, including forgery, theft and false identification charges to arrests for manufacturing MDA, LSD and synthetic mescaline to carrying a concealed weapon.
Pickard was arrested Dec. 28 1988 in Mountain View, California for the manufacture of LSD and synthetic mescaline. Apperson was "a better chemist than Leonard was". Leonard did not refute that but Apperson was not caught at the Mountain View Lab. Allegedly Pickard and Apperson previously manufactured LSD in Oregon, in Aspen, Colorado, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Ellsworth, Kansas. Gordon Todd Skinner claims the Santa Fe lab typically produced about one kilogram of LSD every five weeks.
The DEA reports that Apperson and Pickard were responsible for manufacturing a majority of the LSD sold in the United States and cites an estimated 90 percent reduction in the drug's availability as evidence of this. Apperson is eligible to earn up to 54 days of "gain time" each year, meaning he could be released after serving 25 years.
