Due to a hole in federal sentencing guidelines, a Southern California man who prosecutors say was the "cooker" at a methamphetamine laboratory was ordered Friday to serve only nine years and four months in prison on his guilty plea to drug conspiracy charges.
Sentencing for Howard Dillon, 27, San Diego, had been delayed since last spring while prosecutors and defense attorneys determined whether Dillon's guilty plea to a California drug charge made him subject to tougher career criminal statutes.But prosecutor David Schwendiman said Dillon fled from California before his sentencing on the state charge and he had to have been sentenced in that case to face the federal career criminal guideline of at least 17 years and five months in prison.
The judge also gave Dillon credit for the time he has spent in the Salt Lake County Jail since his Sept. 9, 1988, arrest with four other suspects at a methamphetamine drug lab in Salt Lake City.