Bolinas resident goes to jail

Bolinas says goodbye to LSD defendant

By David Rolland

Some 20 Bolinas residents gathered at the edge of town Friday morning to say goodbye to Sage Appel as she headed to a prison in Pleasanton to begin a 10-year term for selling LSD between 1989 and 1993.

The group, who had assembled in front of Las Baulines Nursery on Olema-Bolinas Road, had to wait for Appel to be driven by because - as they eventually learned - Appel's escort was having car trouble in front of the postoffice. One well-wisher suggested the breakdown was a sign that Appel shouldn't be leaving town.

However, moments later Appel arrived and stepped out of the car just long enough to fling flower petals and embrace a few of her friends. Then she set off for prison.

Under sentencing laws, Appel must serve at least 8.5 years of her 10-year term. She will also serve five years of supervised parole after her time behind bars.

The 52-year-old Appel was arrested in the summer of 1993, along with four other current and former Bolinas residents,

following a four-year sting operation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The bust was touted by the DEA and state Attorney General Dan Lungren as one of the most important LSD busts ever. They said the organization made millions of dollars a year selling by the hallucinogenic drug nationwide.

DEA tactics questioned The defendants' attorneys and friends charged that the government's numbers were inflated and that agents continued to buy LSD from the defendants to add time to their eventual prison sentences.

During the investigation, the group - mainly Appel and Marcella Robinson- sold 88 grams, or 880,000 doses, to undercover agents for $175,000.

Court documents have revealed that undercover agents may have enticed at least one of the defendants to keep dealing the drug despite her saying she wanted to stop.

Last year, after probation officials recommended Appel be sentenced to 10 years in prison, her attorney, Randy Daar, asked US Court Judge Eugene Lynch to consider evidence showing that agents terminated the sting but then restarted it when they realized they had bought only 9.4 grams of LSD from Appel. The 10-year mandatory minimum sentence "kicks in at 10 grams," Daar noted.

Agents then set up one last purchase from Appel in San Rafael, buying 40 grams of LSD, by far the largest single sale of the operation. She was arrested as soon as the transaction was completed.

No lab found Federal prosecutors argued that agents had kept making purchases for four years in hopes of eventually discovering the laboratory that producing the LSD, but no factory was ever found.

Daar added that the government's arguments would be more believable if they had tracked Appel prior to the buys to see where she was getting the drugs.

However, the attorney said, "there was no pre-buy surveillance. What else could they gain by buying another gram" - if not to increase Appel's time in prison: "They could have arrested the same people four years earlier."

Daar complained that mandatory-minimum sentences in drug crimes takes discretion away from judges. "It's the case agent who decides the sentence, not the judge." Daar has appealed the sentencing on Appel's behalf.

Other defendants Arrested along with Appel were Marcella Robinson of Bolinas, who is serving a 10-year term at Santa Rita Prison; Neal Dry, a former Bolinas resident who in 1994 received a two-year term; and longtime Bolinas resident Hasci Horvath, who received five years of probation but avoided a prison sentence.

A fifth defendant, Carolyn Fried, known in Bolinas as Sarah Bernhardt, last spring was extradited from Guatemala and has pled not guilty. Agents called her the organizer of the group. She is due in federal court for a status hearing on Friday, Jan. 12.

Community reaction

Many Bolinas residents were shocked and angered when they heard of the arrests. The defendants, especially Horvath, Appel, and Robinson, had been popular members of the community.

Merchants around town subsequently hired some of the defendants to help them make ends meet, and dozens wrote letters to prosecutors describing the defendants' good standing in Bolinas.

"Our wonderful citizens were arrested," said Carol Perrin of Bolinas. "A mood of support definitely sprung up," not to mention "plenty of anger about the stupidity of the [drug] laws [which] fill up the prisons and take nice people away."

Noting that she once believed this country's judicial system was lenient on non-violent, first-time offenders, Perrin complained, the sentencing "just seems totally tragic.

"It seems cruel and inhumane, especially for a non-violent crime. If they're caught and they're awakened, they probably won't do it again. To slap somebody right away, to me, is so fascistic."

'Strength & dignity' Friends described Appel as someone who faced prison with strength and dignity. "She's a local saint," said Perrin. "She never showed any anger. She acted as a teacher through all this in how she conducted herself.

"Most of us are really pissed. [But] she decided she wasn't going to waste the freedom [before incarceration] having negative feelings. She's been able to enjoy a couple of years of happiness rather than the sadness of anticipation."

Resident Dennis Rotch said the town has temporarily lost a valuable citizen. "It tears at the fabric of the community," he said. "We're a small town, and it hurts. She's a very healing, good person."

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