In June I posted about Operation Meth Merchant in Georgia that netted nearly 50 people, most of them Indian convenience store owners, on suspicion of selling components that make methamphetamines, knowing what they’d be used for. 

But first, a quick lesson in meth production: The key ingredient in the process is ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which also happen to be the key ingredients in cold and allergy medicines such as Sudafed, Tylenol Cold capsules and Max Brand Pseudo 60s.

Those are legal products, legally bought and sold in stores all over the country. Selling them becomes a federal crime only if the seller knows that they’re going to be used in meth production. To minimize that problem, stores at the time had been urged by law enforcement to limit the amount of ephedrine-based medicines sold to each individual. [Link]

In August, Ennis reported on some of the prosecution’s mix-ups.  Now, Rediff reports how elements of the case have begun to dramatically unravel for the prosecution, and asks the question, “why did it take so long?”:

US District Attorney David E Nahmias requested the courts last fortnight to dismiss charges that Siddharth Patel had sold over the counter components used in the manufacture of the drug methamphetamine.

And well he should — Patel was over a thousand miles away when he supposedly committed the crime, and had photographic evidence to prove it.

In a case that has assumed racial overtones, Nahmias told the court Patel had been identified, erroneously, as the man who sold the components July 23, 2004 in Georgia, USA — when it was conclusively proved that at the time, and on the date, in question, he was in New York…

Earlier, similar charges against Malvika Patel of Cleveland, Tennessee, and her husband Chirag Patel were withdrawn after McCracken Poston appeared as their attorney. Poston is also Siddharth Patel’s attorney in the case…

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p>”Malvika Patel was picking up her young son from day care in Cleveland, Tennessee, at the exact moment this informant claimed she was behind the counter of a store in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia,” Poston told rediff India Abroad. “Similarly, Chirag Patel was with his family in India at the time the informant claimed he was at the same store in December 2004.”

Similarly, Siddharth Patel was working at a Subway outlet in Hicksville, New York, at the time the informant placed him in Whitfield County, Georgia, selling the components at Deep Springs Superette, a convenience store in the Varnell community of Whitfield County. [Link]

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p>Uhhh, woops, I guess.  Why did it take so damn long to establish that the person arrested had been misidentified.  In stinks of incompetence and probably something worse.

“What troubles me is how long it took for the prosecution to withdraw its case, when there was photographic evidence that Patel had been misidentified,” Vanita Gupta, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund…

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p>Oh by the way, here is what actually happened (don’t forget that the “Clerk” wasn’t even Siddharth Patel).  See if you can spot the crime:

INFORMER: You got any of these, uh, Pseudo 60s?

CLERK: Yes, how many? Huh?

INFORMER: A case.

CLERK: Case we can’t sell, sir, one or two, that’s it.

INFORMER: Uh, I’ll take two. Can I . . . there’s no way . . . I can get anymore?

CLERK: No sir.

INFORMER: You can’t sell no more than that?

CLERK: Two bottles a day.

INFORMER: Two bottles a day?

CLERK: Uh hmm.

INFORMER: I need two more to finish it up . . . to finish my . . .

CLERK (talking over informer): No.

INFORMER (talking over woman): . . . cook up — you got any matches?

CLERK: I don’t think so we carry any more.

INFORMER (whispering to clerk): If I take these out . . . can I take these out and come back and get two more?

CLERK: No sir.

INFORMER: (Expletive deleted).

CLERK: If you change your clothes I will remember your face, so . . . don’t be trying. OK. . . . There you go sir.

INFORMER: Thank you.

CLERK: There’s tomorrow, OK?

INFORMER: Tomorrow?

CLERK: All day.

INFORMER: OK.  [source]

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Patel has every right to be pissed.  Just look at what he had to go through:

Siddharth Patel’s nightmare began in July, when he was arrested at Newark Airport, New Jersey, on his return after getting married in India. He was taken to a detention facility in New Jersey, then to Oklahama, Atlanta, and ultimately to Floyd County Jail and produced in the court of the US Magistrate in Georgia.

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p>He was denied the mandatory phone call option, while in NJ. In one of the jails he stayed in, he was offered meat though he is a strict vegetarian. He lived on water, and was unable to change his clothes for days. Prison guards ridiculed him for being a ‘Patel’, he says.

Vanita Gupta is going to involve herself in the case now.  She thinks that she sees many similarities between this and the infamous Tulia case.