Former Bolinas resident Carolyn Fried, known locally as Sarah Bernhardt, has been allowed to return home to Guatemala after being convicted in May on three counts of selling LSD back in 1989.
As part of a deal with US attorneys, Bernhardt withdrew her earlier plea of not guilty to conspiracy charges, and instead plead guilty to selling slightly less than three grams of LSD to undercover agents in Bolinas.
Three grams of LSD, or acid, equals about 30,000 doses. One dose of acid gives its user a hallucinogenic "trip" of eight to 12 hours.
At her May 3 sentencing, Bernhardt was given credit for time served. She had spent nearly two years in a Guatemalan jail and another year in prison here following her extradition in May 1995.
Bernhardt was also sentenced to five years of "supervised release," which her attorney called the federal equivalent of probation in state cases.
Bernhardt and four other Bolinas residents were arrested in June 1993 following a four-year undercover investigation of what the Justice Dept. then called one of the largest LSD-distribution rings in US history.
Bustamante called charges of "Sarah being the ringleader of a multi-million-dollar, nationwide LSD organization over-inflated and basically not true... Were they making millions of dollars? No. Was it nationwide? No."
"They believed it and thought that's what occurred," said Bustamante, "but I don't think they could substantiate that." He called allegations that Bernhardt shipped LSD in quilts to the US from a Guatemalan laboratory "crazy stuff."
He said federal attorneys received bad information from "confidential informants working off time from their own sentences... Sarah plead guilty for that which she was guilty of [doing]. She had no personal knowledge of what was happening here."
Bustamante said his client was treated fairly by US attorneys and District Court Judge Eugene Lynch in her sentencing. "I can defend conspiracy [charges] when my client wasn't here," he said. "I can't defend on three hand-to-hand [transactions] to the Man."
Robinson was convicted of selling 70 grams of LSD to government agents while Appel was convicted of selling 10 grams. At the time of her arrest, Appel was allegedly in the process of selling an additional 40 grams.
In 1994, Robinson's estranged husband Neal Dry was sentenced to two years in prison for selling two grams, and Hasci Horvath last year was sentenced to five years probation and 500 hours of community service for playing what prosecutors called a "minor role" in the group.
Appel's attorney Randy Daar is currently pursuing a "sentencing entrapment" case on behalf of his client, said partner Bustamante, who could not confirm whether or not Robinson's attorney was doing the same.
One female agent became close friends with Robinson and even attended her wedding.
The agents' conduct was "disturbing," said Bustamante. "The penalty and exposure [to LSD] continues to go up. They spent a significant amount of money, and they never found anything."