Transcript Staff Writer
A Cleveland County District Court jury deliberated more than four hours Monday, before finding Richard Everett Billetter, 39, not guilty on three felony charges.
Billetter was charged with forcible oral sodomy; lewd acts with a child; and exhibiting obscene photos to a minor.
Billetter was represented by defense attorney Tracy Schumacher. The trial began Wednesday in the courtroom of District Judge Bill Hetherington.
Also Monday, a Moore man took the stand in his own defense, and is expected to resume his testimony today in the courtroom of District Judge Tom Lucas.
Rickey Fowler, 45, is charged with the unlawful distribution of pseudoephedrine with reckless disregard for how it was going to be used.
Fowler testified he began helping his dad supply grocery stores with products when he was only 6 years old. He later worked for William Davis, Sysco, U.S. Food Services and other distributors before establishing his own company distributing beef jerky in 1981, Fowler said.
He changed the company's name to Rick's Picks in 1994 or 1995, he said.
"A friend of mine said, 'You're so picky, just call it Rick's Picks,'" he said.
Operating out of his Moore home, Fowler said he drove a semi with a 36-foot trailer and sold products to convenience stores from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and into Arkansas.
Those products included DayQuil, NyQuil and other flu and cold remedies, and Fowler applied for, and received, approval from the DEA to sell medicines containing pseudoephedrine in 1996 or 1997, he said.
Fowler told Michelle Sanders, a diversion investigator for the Drug Enforcement Agency, products containing pseudoephedrine made up 5 to 10 percent of his business, he said.
"I had 350 to 400 products and 10 to 20 had pseudoephedrine in them," he said.
Fowler is accused of selling more than 10 million tablets of pseudoephedrine -- the main ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine -- over a two-year period, to convenience stores, bait shops, smoke shops and head shops throughout Oklahoma, with reckless disregard for its use.
The charge resulted from a joint investigation of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration into the supply of pseudoephedrine tablets for the manufacture of meth, Sanders testified.
Oklahoma law does not specify what amount of pills constitutes a "threshold amount," according to trial testimony.
Fowler is represented by defense attorney Michael Parks of McAlester. Assistant District Attorney Michael Tupper is prosecuting the case.
Tom Blakey 366-3540 tblakey@normantranscript.com
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Billetter acquitted; Fowler trial continues
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