Campus lab called me th-making site

panky · Fri Jun 17, 2005 9:07 am

Campus lab called me th-making site

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

June 16, 2005

A San Diego State graduate student on probation for drug violations used a university lab to make methedrine, Ecstasy and an anesthetic 80 times more potent than morphine, authorities said yesterday.

Matthew Finley, 26, was arrested at his home in Ocean Beach yesterday and the campus lab where he worked was shut down as investigators removed illicit drugs, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman said.

"He felt he could get away with it. To his disappointment today, he did not," DEA spokesman Misha Piastro said. "His disregard for the safety of the rest of the student body is alarming and not something we take lightly."

After his arrest, Finley told investigators that he manufactured methedrine and a chemical used to make methedrine, as well as Ecstasy and fentanyl, the powerful anesthetic, according a court document.

Capsules of Ecstasy, vials of fentanyl and three marijuana plants were seized from Finley's home, authorities said.

The second floor of the west wing of the Chemical Sciences Laboratory is expected to reopen today, said university spokesman Jason Foster.

Because it's nearly summer, only 25 to 30 people were working in the west wing of the lab yesterday, he said.

While drug arrests on the large campus are not unusual, Foster said he could not recall another drug incident in the last five years involving the chemical labs.

Finley, who was pursuing a master's degree in chemistry, was convicted of drug charges in Santa Barbara in 2002 and placed on probation, according to a complaint a DEA agent filed with a federal judge yesterday.

At that time, he told investigators he used a lab at the University of California Santa Barbara to convert a liquid form of the drug Ecstasy into a powder, the agent said.

He was caught growing marijuana the following year and again placed on probation. A judge sentenced him to two years in prison but suspended the sentence, according to the complaint.

San Diego State University police approached the DEA late last year after being tipped that someone was manufacturing methedrine in the chemistry lab where Finley worked.

A surveillance camera in the lab captured Finley late last month working with a dark liquid that later tested positive for Ecstasy, authorities said.

Some of the chemicals Finley used were likely obtained outside the university, Piastro said.

Foster said there are strict controls on its laboratories, which do some of the more than $100 million worth of research the university performs a year.

"Students have to go through environmental health and safety training," he said. "There are safety officers within departments like chemistry that track the incoming orders for chemicals and disbursements of chemicals."

Finley is expected to appear in court today.

DjTime · Chemical Dj

old news, but thanks for the info

stratosphere · Fri Jun 17, 2005 2:59 pm

im sort of surprised with one conviction of using a lab for illegal purposes any universities would let him work in a chemical lab, but maybe they don't do backgroud checks.

Twacked Out · Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:43 am

its school and he still has every right to go back and use it again, convictions or not