Features

Laboratory, employees plead innocent

Daily Planet Wire Service
Wednesday October 23, 2002

OAKLAND — A Hayward chemical supply company and seven individuals have pleaded innocent in federal court in Oakland to charges of conspiring to sell $11 million worth of freon to make methamphetamine. 

The All Discount Laboratory Supply Company, two owners, two employees and three other people entered their not-guilty pleas in the court of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken on Monday.  

They were accused in a 51-count indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Oakland on Oct. 16. The new indictment expands on charges in an earlier indictment filed in December 2000. 

The indictment alleges that the company owners Vladimir Kotlyarenko and Mark Kesel, and employees Diane Engle and William Gifford sold “hundreds of thousands of pounds” of freon worth $11.6 million between 1998 and 2000.