It's true. Check out the PDFs on Frank Zazz's link.
Sentencing date: March 2019. Dude paid $100 and is on 3 yrs probation (drug testing, monitoring, threat of incarceration for noncompliance) but completely dodged the possible 10-year prison term.
The plea agreement also states the following:
- Kyle Ross Roop of Louisiana goes by "Tone or Barrett Wallace".
- controlled buy was done May 2018 from Alabama
- arrested Sept 19, 2018 during a meeting in Shreveport, LA with the buyer from Alabama ("cooperating defendant", from a previous bust we can assume)
- Roop had a full lab in his house
Sounds to me like his lapse in security was in meeting a customer in person. I see no indication that some other means of finding & identifying Roop was in play, but it's also possible the paperwork is deliberately misleading to protect LE methods.
I don't have the law training (or the patience) to decode the charges but it seems like interstate commerce of Sched III substances is part of it. Make me wonder: If you keep your UGL activity strictly local, in-state, would it keep the Feds out of it? Would it avoid mail fraud charges and give less power to LE agencies involved, less warrant power? The lab of course will land you in prison, but that only gets discovered at the end. Anyone here know?