Two people connected with Operation Ice Palace, a meth operation which involved the sale of large quantities of over-the-counter cold medications to meth manufacturers, pleaded guilty in federal court this week, according to a news released issued today by Todd Graves, U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Those pleading guilty were Tracy J. VanBibber, 39, Camdenton, who entered his plea this morning to a charge of distributing pseudoephedrine, knowing that it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine, and Gabriel Delossantso, 29, Rogers, Ark., who pleaded last week to conspiracy to distribute pseudoedephrine.
Among others who have already pleaded guilty in Operation Ice Palace is Sherry Woodard, 45, Washburn, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison Jan. 21. According to Graves, Ms. Woodard, owner of Sims General Store in rural McDonald County, was ordering "excessive amounts of generic pseudoedephrine products," which were then being distributed to meth manufacturers.
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Earlier today, I wrote about the lack of an article about O'Sullivan Industries' 50th anniversary on The Lamar Democrat website.
The article was featured in the print edition on page 6. The Democrat ran verbatim the press release issued by the company, which as I noted last week did not contain any references to the city of Lamar, though Lamar was where the company became a household name.
As a reader pointed out to me, the celebration itself is somewhat bogus since the company began 51 years ago, not 50. Perhaps company officials had the good taste not to celebrate the firm's 50th anniversary during a year in which all members of the founding family were sent packing.