Charges Dropped In Meth Case

[Perception Addict]

Myers cleared of drug charges


Loveland resident Jeremy Chad Myers walked from a district courtroom Thursday with tears in his eyes and said he feels “as innocent as ever.”
Myers considers himself vindicated because 8th Judicial District prosecutors dropped all drug charges against him for what three separate reports show is a false accusation that he cooked methamphetamine in his home on the old sugar factory grounds in Loveland.


Colorado Bureau of Investigation tests on substances seized by the Larimer County Drug Task Force during a no-knock raid Sept. 6 all came back “no controlled substances” — no amphetamine and no ephedrine, for which initial on-site screens tested positive.


Myers also voluntarily submitted to a hair follicle test, which reveals whether a person has used, cooked or inhaled drugs in the past 90 days. He passed.


And Century Environmental Hygiene, a company in Fort Collins certified to test for meth hazards, found no indications that the drug was cooked or smoked in the home or dumped into the surrounding soil.


Myers’ father, Jim, who owns the property and paid for the test, teared up at the thought of his son’s freedom, and he expressed anger at what he and his son have been put through.


“It’s been total hell,” he said.


Jeremy had to sell the equipment he uses as a self-employed backhoe operator.


“My business is gone,” Jeremy said, again nearly crying.


“It’s rebuilding now,” his father said determinedly.


In addition to lost wages, the Myerses had expensive legal bills, the cost of testing the property for contamination and two bonds, $25,000 and $50,000, to get Jeremy out of jail.


And they have faced the rumors and talk in Loveland, the community they call home.


Because of all this, Jim Myers said he is considering suing the Drug Task Force, to send its members a message.


“Maybe they’ll consider more carefully what they do,” Jim Myers said.
The task force zeroed in on Myers after a confidential informant gave them information pointing to Myers, said his defense attorney, Linda Miller. That practice is faulty, she said, because the informant is pressured to give police a name to lessen his own troubles.


After the tip, undercover detectives began watching the brick building, part of which was used as storage and part that Jeremy Myers had converted to an apartment.


They searched his trash and focused two surveillance cameras on the house.


The test results from CBI were a surprise to Loveland Detective Brian Koopman, who headed the investigation and search of Myers’ property in September.


When faced with the results in court at the initial preliminary hearing Nov. 5, Koopman testified he had not seen the report.


“It was a surprise to him,” confirmed Koopman’s boss, Lt. Craig Dodd, who commands the Drug Task Force. “Everything we saw on that scene was indicative of a meth lab.”


The indications included initial on-scene tests that twice came up positive for amphetamine in a jar of a white crystallized substance found in a storage shed and for ephedrine in a jar of bi-level fluid that police said looked like an active cook.


Those tests are just presumptive and are always followed by lab tests, but they are rarely incorrect, according to Dodd.


“I don’t think we’ve ever had a false positive,” he said. “But you can get them.


“(The test) is just a piece of the puzzle, so to speak.”


The lab tests revealed what the seized items are not, but not what they are. Each test screens for a specific substance that is requested, but a generic, identifying test was not conducted.


Jim Myers thinks the white substance found in a jar in Amalgamated Sugar’s shed was old sugar, and as for the jar of fluid, he still doesn’t know.


“It’s been there since we bought the building in 1989,” Myers said. “I have no idea what it is.”


But he knows what it is not: methamphetamine.


It is unclear if police will request further tests to identify the substances found.


After the Nov. 5 hearing, Dodd said drug officers were considering additional lab screens.


On Thursday, he said he could not comment because the case is not closed.


“We are still investigating,” Dodd said when reached after court Thursday, “but are not currently looking at the sugar factory as a possible meth lab.”
Prosecutors could file the same charges again or different charges in the future.


However, Miller said she is positive they will not because of the three tests that cleared Myers.


“They can’t change the results,” she said.



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