La Mesa

A La Mesa man convicted of manufacturing a large amount of methamphetamine was sentenced Friday to 10 years and eight months in state prison.

The maximum sentence was handed down to Paul Manning Walker, 34, by San Diego Superior Court Judge William Kennedy, who also imposed a $300 fine.

About $500,000 worth of methamphetamine was discovered in a house Walker had lived in on Oct. 8, 1986. His defense attorney had argued that Walker had moved away from the house when La Mesa police arrested him and that the drugs belonged to another occupant.

Walker served six years in San Quentin State Prison for voluntary manslaughter of a state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement officer whom he shot in December, 1973, in the Bay Area, said San Diego County Deputy Dist. Atty. Evan Miller.

Miller said the shooting of Steve Armenta, 45, occurred during a drug bust.

Kennedy said Walker posed “an immediate and long-term threat to this community” for his drug offenses. He called methamphetamine “a highly addictive drug.”

A co-defendant, Lisa Quan, 28, of La Mesa, was sentenced Thursday to three years probation and credit for 37 days already spent in jail.

Quan had pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine for sale. She also was ordered to spend 16 hours a month in volunteer work for a year.

Walker was also convicted in a jury trial Oct. 30 of possession of the drug but was acquitted of possession of a gun as an ex-felon.

Walker’s attorney, G. Anthony Gilham, had argued to jurors that Walker was “set up” by police by one of the slain agent’s former partners who now works here in law enforcement. Jurors said afterward that they rejected that theory.