A 23-year-old man in New York will be going to prison after he called the police and unwittingly exposed his own Walter White-esque drug lab last year, which he had been falsely operating as a legitimate business.
Matthew Leshinsky pleaded guilty on Thursday to multiple drug charges, including unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine in the third degree, authorities announced.
“This defendant was operating a Breaking Bad-style drug lab and tried to conceal it under the guise of a legitimate business,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a statement. “He then inadvertently turned himself in when he reported that a burglary occurred at that same business.”
According to the DA’s office, Leshinsky called 911 at about 3:30 a.m. on June 7 to report a burglary in progress at his “purported business establishment, Quantitative Laboratories, LLC, in Ronkonkoma, New York.”
Once there, first responders saw “broken glass” at the entrance of what appeared to be a laboratory.
“While the officers continued investigating, they discovered what appeared to be a clandestine laboratory that was involved in the manufacture, production, and preparation of methamphetamine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hallucinogenic substance, amongst other controlled substances,” the release states.
A search uncovered more than 100 pieces of “lab equipment, chemical reagents and solvents used in the manufacture, production, or preparation of methamphetamine, as well as substances that resulted from the production or preparation of methamphetamine,” authorities said.
Authorities seized more than $40,000 in cash, a “quantity” of MDMA, which is also known as ecstasy, more than three ounces of meth, over 625,000 milligrams of “pure ketamine,” and 20 plastic 55-gallon drums containing Gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), chemically similar to Gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), or “the date rape drug.”
Leshinsky is set to appear in court again on March 20 for his sentencing hearing.
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