Man Gets 3 Months for Drug That Sickened Party-Goers

A 30-year-old San Diego man was sentenced Monday to three months in prison, three years in a halfway house and a $2,000 fine for distributing a drink called “fX” that made more than two dozen people sick at a 1996 New Year’s Eve party at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles.

Daniel Bricker, who had advertised “fX” as a “safe high,” was sentenced under a plea bargain with federal prosecutors under which he pleaded guilty to misbranding a food or drug product. He could have been sent to prison for three years.

U.S. District Judge Leland Nielsen rejected a request by federal prosecutors that Bricker be sent to prison for six months. Defense attorney Eugene Iredale had asked for probation or home detention.

The party, dubbed “In Seventh Heaven,” deteriorated into a melee when party-goers began getting sick and police fired rubber bullets to disperse a crowd estimated at more than 10,000. Party-goers threw stones at police and rocked an MTA bus.

Bricker, a chiropractor with a background in chemistry, brewed the 900 vials of drug at his family-owned business, Bricker Laboratories, in Escondido, which sold vitamins and health food. Bricker allegedly turned to selling “fX” at $20 a vial when Bricker Laboratories began failing financially.

Federal officials said the active ingredients in “fX” were an industrial solvent and caffeine. Bricker allegedly provided the vials for free as a kind of test market.

Before being sentenced, Bricker filed for bankruptcy. He is being sued by the promoters of the party.