A New York man, whose attorney said is a “brilliant” scientist who researched drug addiction “for the public good”, has pleaded guilty to running a meth lab in a case that prosecutors compare to the series Breaking Bad.
But Matthew Leshinsky’s chemistry skills took him only so far. The 23-year-old was busted for running the meth operation in Ronkonkoma, New York, after calling the police to report a burglary at his cannabis analyzing side-hustle, Quantitative Laboratories.
When police arrived at his business after receiving a 911 call at 3.30am on 7 June last year, prosecutors said the police found broken glass, chemicals and evidence of a clandestine drug lab for the “manufacture, production, and preparation of methamphetamine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hallucinogenic substance, amongst other controlled substances”.
A subsequent search turned up more than 100 pieces of laboratory equipment, 3 ounces of methamphetamine, $40,000 in cash, and MDMA, better known as known as ecstasy or molly, 625,000 milligrams of pure ketamine, and more than 20 plastic 55-gallon drums containing gamma-butyrolactone, or GHB, sometimes called the “date rape drug”.
“This defendant was operating a Breaking Bad-style drug lab and tried to conceal it under the guise of a legitimate business,” the Suffolk county district attorney, Ray Tierney, said in a statement. “He then inadvertently turned himself in when he reported that a burglary occurred at that same business.”
On Thursday, Leshinsky’s run as Walter White, the fictional meth maker in the hit AMC series, was certifiably over when he pleaded guilty to nine felonies, including unlawful manufacturing methamphetamine and multiple counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance.
David Besso, Leshinsky’s attorney, who described his client as a “brilliant” scientist and worked “for the public good” in Newsday, denied his client was running a meth lab, and said he had in fact applied for a license from New York’s department of environmental conservation but was working without correct certification at the time of his arrest.
“Unfortunately, he went about it the wrong way,” Besso said, according to Newsday.
The attorney said that Leshinsky studied chemistry at Hofstra University and had worked a researcher for multiple corporations, and described him as “a real nice kid, forthright, focused on what he was doing … [He] built a tremendous lab from nothing.”
But Bezzo said his client had come to realize he had committed crimes and agreed to plead guilty.
Leshinsky, he said, appeared a “little depressed” in court. He is due to be sentenced next month.
