Privileged Brothers’ Lives Shatter in Drug Lab Blast : Crime: The Brintons had bright prospects in science. Now they stand convicted of making methamphetamine.

Even by the recklessly violent standards of the drug underworld, it is a particularly savage and desperate collection of criminals that congregates around methamphetamine.

There are the Hells Angels, who distribute huge amounts of the drug known as “crank” or “speed.” There are the well-armed crews of “cookers” who make the substance in 36-hour sprees, frantically churning it out from filthy, toxic laboratories. There are untold thousands of users, jittery with paranoia, racked by sleep deprivation, often covered with open sores.

And then there are William and Brett Brinton.

It was not long ago that the Brinton brothers--handsome, articulate and entrepreneurial--appeared destined for careers in science. In the early 1980s, they graduated from high school in San Bernardino and went on to pursue college degrees--William from UC Riverside, Brett from UC Irvine with some course work at Harvard University. In 1987, when both brothers still were in their early 20s, they founded their own company, B & B Software Engineering.

Then, just before sunset on a warm March evening in 1989, B & B Software exploded. The thunderous blast ripped off the aluminum doors, buckled the ceiling and rocked the entire block. It also summoned the authorities, who found a full-scale meth lab in the wreckage.

So ended the Brintons’ volatile career in chemistry. But the explosion marked just the beginning of an unusual legal battle that some have dubbed the “Boys’ Life” case. It has resulted in federal convictions against both Brintons, sparked a novel appeal testing the specificity of federal methamphetamine laws, divided residents and city leaders in San Bernardino and stoked a feud between that city’s police union and its top municipal leaders.

But as the fallout continues and the lawyers gear up for another round in court, the big question remains unanswered. Where did the Brinton brothers go wrong?

“What’s the expression? Curiosity killed the cat?” William Brinton, 28, asked in one of several recent interviews with The Times. “That’s what you have here.”

Brett Brinton, 26, agrees. He said he and his brother are “real nice, educated guys who got drawn into all of this.”

Prosecutors take a harsher view.

“Both of these defendants . . . have been very, very privileged,” Assistant U. S. Atty. Gregory W. Alarcon said during their sentencing hearing. “They have used that privilege and the knowledge that they have in a destructive way. . . . They endangered human lives, and they should be treated harshly for that.”

From the time the Brinton brothers “were old enough to hold an X-Acto knife,” they were budding young scientists who loved to build models, according to their mother. The youngsters took after their father, a scientist, and they fell in love with tinkering.

When they were barely in grade school, the Brintons succeeded in building a hot-air balloon capable of carrying a person.

They did well in school, thriving especially in science and math. After graduating from high school, William attended Valley College in San Bernardino and went on to UC Riverside. He graduated magna cum laude from a computer programming school.

Brett angled more toward chemistry. He went to UC Irvine, where he studied biology, biochemistry and science, earning a place on the dean’s list. He did some course work at Harvard University one summer. He dreamed of becoming a doctor.

But all was not well at home. The Brinton parents, William Sr. and Joan, were divorced in 1987.

“When my wife, Joan, and I divorced, my close relationship with my sons was severed,” William Brinton said in a sworn affidavit. “We were not close. It was a bitter separation, and while I attempted contact with my sons, the contact was limited to short phone calls with often bitter remarks.”

The children stayed closer to their mother--Brett lived at home when not in school, and William lived nearby with his girlfriend. But their proximity apparently did not lead the Brinton boys to tell their mother everything.

Joan Brinton testified that she knew nothing of her children’s drug venture. She said she thought they were working as computer software consultants. But because she worked long hours managing a temporary employment service and never dropped by their “office” to see how things were going, Joan Brinton did not know for sure.

It is not clear when or why the Brintons decided to move from computer software to drug manufacturing--or even if the computer company was always just a front.

They deny that their main motive was money, but police and prosecutors find that hard to believe. At the trial, prosecutors argued that the Brintons had been in the drug business for at least two years, and a storage locker that they rented contained enough ephedrine to make more than 1,000 pounds of salable drugs. That supply alone could have earned them more than $10 million.

Still, evidence in the court record suggests that the Brintons were something less than calculating drug pros. They approached their venture with boyish, amateurish enthusiasm.

Take their videotape, for example.

In 1987, the Brintons rented a mountain home in Grass Valley. They spent several weeks there, by most outward appearances enjoying the area as tourists.

As any easygoing tourist might, one of the brothers decided to take some pictures. He picked up a video camera and started filming.

The short tape opens with a shot of a lake and a golf course, moves to the patio and a close-up on a jay. Then it cuts indoors, where the camera records a bright yellow laboratory with a pair of 22-liter methamphetamine cooking setups. There is a shot of a hooded person wearing a respirator and ski goggles. Chemicals are cooking in bubbling vats.

The tape jumps back to the jay and some ducks on the lake, and to a shot of Brett Brinton, wearing his Harvard sweat shirt, mugging for the camera and climbing around the outside of the house.

Then the cameraman re-enters the lab: “Step on in here,” the narrator says. “Another damn laboratory. Do you believe it? . . . . It’s a bust.”

That tape turned up in Brett Brinton’s safe. San Bernardino police are now use it for drug training.

The Brintons’ San Bernardino warehouse lab also bore their signature.

It was no ordinary methamphetamine shop, which often are grubby little holes in the wall, meant to be used and quickly discarded. This one was elaborately built on split levels, with the cooking done in a bathroom equipped with a video camera.

Other rooms were set aside for relaxing or doing business.

It even had a loft, set off with trellising. And in the loft was the warehouse’s most distinctive feature: a hot tub. Using the video equipment and a television monitor, the brothers could soak in the tub and watch the progress of their drug manufacturing in comfort.

But the explosion on that March evening apparently caught the Brintons by surprise. They emerged dazed and lucky to be alive. And they left behind some telling evidence.

One clue turned out to be particularly important because it led police to a small chemistry company in Ardsley, N. Y.

It was in early 1989 that two young men, introducing themselves as Frank Curtis and Doug, visited the RSA Corp. in Ardsley saying they were seeking advice, remembers Stephanie Weber, who screened new customers for the company.

According to Weber, the visitors wanted suggestions on how to improve the purity of a product they and a customer were manufacturing. They called the product desoxyn, a term prosecutors have said is another name for methamphetamine.

But Weber was suspicious.

“They came in here dressed quite spiffily,” Weber said in a recent interview. “I’ve never seen an engineer who owned a suit that cost that much money. They usually come in with one brown sock and one black sock. These guys were Pierre Cardin.”

Weber’s suspicions grew when the men pulled out a “two-inch thick wad of money” and peeled off three $50 bills to pay for the initial research. RSA did some preliminary work, but soon discovered that something looked wrong.

“Upon beginning the literature study which you have authorized, we quickly determined that the product that your customer is seeking to manufacture is a controlled substance,” RSA Plant Manager Jan S. Anthony said in a Feb. 14, 1989, letter to B & B Software Engineering. RSA suspended work on the project.

Weber alerted the Drug Enforcement Administration, but before the DEA could act, the Brintons’ lab blew up. The letter from Anthony was found inside.

Weber identified Frank Curtis and Doug as William and Brett Brinton.

The Brintons came to trial in the summer of 1990. It was a complicated affair, with their lawyers arguing that the brothers were incorrectly charged and maintaining that police acted improperly during the investigation--failing to read the brothers their rights before asking them where they lived, for instance.

Motions to throw out evidence or grant a new trial were dismissed, however, and on Aug. 17, 1990, a federal jury convicted both brothers of possessing and manufacturing methamphetamine, and endangering human life while manufacturing the drug. That would seem to have ended the case, but it merely triggered another round of fallout.

The Brintons traveled in good circles in San Bernardino, and their nice manners and clean-cut appearances helped them make some influential friends. After they had been convicted, some of those friends spoke up on their behalf, writing letters to the judge who would sentence them.

“I have found Bill to be responsible, dependable, good-natured, well mannered and of good moral character,” wrote Diana M. Ramirez, then the city of San Bernardino’s acting personnel director. “Without any reservation, I consider Bill to be a fine citizen and person.”

The name of City Administrator Shauna Edwins also appeared on a letter of support for William.

Neither of the letters was supposed to become public. But someone anonymously sent copies to the San Bernardino Sun and the San Bernardino police officers’ union.

The uproar was immediate. Letters poured into the Sun. The paper chastised both officials for offering “expressions of support for a drug maker.” Police union leaders, who had quarreled with Edwins, demanded her dismissal.

U. S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. was furious. He called in lawyers from both sides to figure out who leaked the letters. No one confessed. To this day the source of the leak remains a mystery.

In San Bernardino, police union leaders eventually accepted Edwins’ explanation that her husband, developer John Edwins, had sent the letter without her permission and signed her name to it. Ramirez had a harder time with her case: She had signed her letter and had mailed it on city stationery.

Ramirez was charged with violating a city ordinance against using government stationery for private purposes. She was suspended for a week without pay.

She has since left the city and steered well clear of the Brinton case. Ramirez refused to comment for this article.

The Brintons were sentenced to 10 years each, the legal minimum and far less than the federal sentencing guidelines call for. But the prosecution has taken the unusual step of appealing the sentences, and wants to see the brothers spend closer to 20 years behind bars.

The Brintons’ best hope for avoiding a longer prison term rests with a novel argument that their lawyer, Roger Hanson of Santa Ana, is pressing at thS. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Hanson, who has a background in chemistry, maintains that the Brintons were falsely charged with attempting to manufacture methamphetamine when in fact it was methamphetamine hydrochloride.

It is a technical argument, but one that Hatter acknowledged was “certainly not frivolous.”

Chemically, there is a big difference between the two substances. They have different molecular structures, different weights, and different melting points. Methamphetamine hydrochloride is usable as a drug. Methamphetamine, as defined by chemists, is not.

If Hanson can convince the appellate court that the Brintons were falsely convicted on methamphetamine charges, they could go free. It’s a gamble, but for the Brintons, it’s just about the only thing that stands between them and at least a decade in federal prison.

While they wait for their appeal to be heard, William and Brett Brinton have some time to contemplate where their lives went off track.

“We’re trying to make the best of a bad situation,” William said. “It’s been a learning experience, that’s for sure. I’m sure some good will come of it. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

After hearing the case, Hatter was tempted to blame the Brintons’ fall on their parents--especially their father, who submitted an affidavit to the court in which he mentions his sons’ plight but focuses largely on the potential damage to his reputation and his business.

But it was the divorce that Hatter worried had most harmed the Brinton brothers.

“Even in your privileged status, you still suffer from one of the sad consequences that we see far too much in our society,” Hatter told the brothers. “There’s little doubt in my mind that if you had had both parents there aiding you in parenting, that you might not be here now.”

San Bernardino Police Officer Jan C. Memmott, who investigated the case, disagrees.

“These two are just bad boys,” Memmott said. “The bottom line of the Brintons is that they are two kids who are arrogant and educated and who think they are above the law.”

As for the Brintons, both acknowledge that something went wrong. They say they are ashamed for the pain they have caused their family. And they concede that it will be hard, maybe impossible, ever to regain the life they traded away.

“I didn’t expect my life to turn out this way,” Brett Brinton told the judge. “I had big plans. And it’s just funny how things turn out sometimes.”