Drug Ring Informant Gets Light Sentence : Narcotics: Judge gives him three years instead of 30 for work and testimony against group that supplied raw ingredients for methamphetamine.

A San Bernardino man whose testimony helped convict leaders of a drug ring that authorities called one of the biggest and most sophisticated ever uncovered was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison.

The sentence, handed down in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles, was extraordinarily light for the crime that Russell S. Higgins admitted committing: conspiracy to aid and abet the manufacture of huge amounts of methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant known as “crank” or “speed.”

Although federal sentencing guidelines specify that a defendant convicted of that crime be sent to prison for at least 30 years, Higgins risked his safety to cooperate with authorities in bringing down a San Bernardino methamphetamine supply ring, prosecutors said. That cooperation earned him the light sentence--and a stern warning from the judge.

“I have given you leniency,” U. S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian told Higgins, a burly, bearded man who once served as a bodyguard and chauffeur for Charles Wesley Arlt, the head of the Inland Empire ring that supplied dozens of methamphetamine manufacturers with the chemicals needed to make the drug.

“There is no second chance,” Tevrizian added. “If you screw up, you’re looking at life in a federal institution. Someone will wake you up and put you to bed for the rest of your life.”

Higgins testified in the case against Arlt and several associates, telling the jury that he participated in two shipments of so-called “precursor chemicals” used to manufacture methamphetamine. One of those shipments involved more than 80,000 pounds of hydriodic acid, which, when mixed with other chemicals and cooked, can produce more than 7,800 pounds of the methamphetamine.

Arlt maintained that the chemicals were for mining, not for producing drugs.

Arlt’s organization had been in operation for years and had amassed millions of dollars in assets, including a fleet of cars, authorities said. San Bernardino police officers--along with agents and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Internal Revenue Service and other agencies--seized more than $1.5 million in assets from Arlt and his associates when they were arrested last year.

Prosecutors say Arlt had become convinced that he would never be caught, and had even flaunted his growing sense of invulnerability. One of Arlt’s cars had a personalized license plate that read: “DEA ICU.”

Higgins, however, turned himself in when he learned that Arlt had been arrested and offered to testify against his former boss. According to Tevrizian, Higgins made that offer without being promised any reduction in his own sentence.

Higgins’ testimony was instrumental in convicting Arlt, said Melinda Haag, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the Arlt case. Haag submitted a sealed motion to the judge urging that Higgins receive the substantially reduced sentence because of his decision to come forward and testify, even though that put him in danger.

Because of the key role Higgins played in the Arlt case--and because authorities believe that Arlt still has many contacts in the criminal world--Higgins is being held at an undisclosed location. Haag said Higgins already has been threatened at least once and has been moved four or five times for his safety.

Under the terms of Higgins’ sentence, he will spend three years in prison and then five years on probation. While on probation, he will have to undergo psychological counseling and drug treatment, including the possibility of drug testing.

Arlt and the other defendants in that case are scheduled to be sentenced next month.