A 51-year-old eastern Iowa man caught buying big batches of an ingredient used to make meth has been sentenced to more than a dozen years in a federal prison. Richard Armstrong of Marion admits he bought more than 400 grams of pseudoephedrine from various drug stores in the Cedar Rapids area.
A state law imposes purchase limits on drugs that contain pseudoephendrine, a key ingredient used to make the illegal drug meth. Armstrong admits he went to a string of drug stores to accumulate medications that contain pseudoephedrine, and then he resold that supply to meth cookers, although he tried to make the meth himself on a few occasions.
Armstrong pled guilty to pseudoephedrine possession and has been sentenced to 150 months in a federal prison. In addition to the state and federal investigators who worked on this case, police from Cedar Rapids, Marion, Iowa City and Clinton worked on this case.