Man Is Charged With Making Methadone in Lab at Cal State

A Highland Park man posed as a chemistry student at California State University, Los Angeles, to set up an illegal methadone-making operation in the school’s laboratory, according to police.

John Francis Hill, 51, is free on bail after his December arrest in the university parking lot by Glendale police, who said they found 15 grams of packaged methadone, valued at $5,000, in his car and about a pound of the nearly completed drug, valued at about $150,000, in the school laboratory.

Glendale narcotics Officer John McKillop called the case a “new twist” in drug-making.

University officials said it has prompted a “serious reevaluation” of campus security measures.

“He was posing as an undergrad,” McKillop said, and had gained the confidence of a professor who helped him obtain use of the laboratory for what Hill told him was “chemical waste research.”

Police said they learned of the operation--believed to be California’s first illegal methadone factory--from a man named Robert Holtzman, a methadone addict who was being held in Glendale on unrelated charges last November.

McKillop said Holtzman--hoping to get favorable treatment from the district attorney’s office--told narcotics officers that he was letting Hill live with him at his apartment in Highland Park in return for methadone. Holtzman was subsequently released without bail on Nov. 14 and died five days later from what the the coroner called a “heroin/morphine overdose.”

Hill has been charged with manufacturing methadone, conspiring to manufacture methadone and possessing a controlled substance. He faces a preliminary hearing April 25. His criminal record includes at least five burglary convictions in the last five years.

Two other suspects were arrested in connection with the methadone manufacturing case:

Philip Bernard Brasile, said by police to have helped Hill sell methadone, was charged with possessing the drug after a small quantity was found at his home in Panorama City.

Edward Anthony Antablin, who police believe transported chemicals used by Hill, was arrested at his home in Torrance (where officers reportedly found 10 grams of methadone) and was charged with possessing, manufacturing and conspiring to manufacture the drug. He was released on bail, and a $50,000 bench warrant was issued for him in January when he failed to appear for arraignment.

University Officials Shocked

Discovery of the illicit drug-making operation came as a shock to university officials.

Joseph Bragin, associate dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences at the university, called it “serious enough to warrant reevaluation of our existing (security) policies.

“We don’t pursue our own oversight (procedures) vigorously enough,” he said. “If they had been working properly, we would have known that (Hill) was not enrolled.”

Donald Paulson, chairman of the chemistry department, said new locks will be installed on the laboratory doors.

Few illicit drug-makers are interested in manufacturing methadone (a synthetic opiate normally used to reduce an addict’s craving for heroin) because it is readily available, free or at reduced prices, at licensed addiction-treatment clinics.

But Dr. Leon Marder, director of the Drug Treatment Unit at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, said an illicit market does exist among former heroin users who have become addicted to methadone but are not registered at the legal clinics.