Giant bust or couple grams?

Photo: Les McCulloch

Leslie McCulloch, left, and Rebekka White were both charged after police conducted a drug raid on a West Kelowna business.

The man who pleaded guilty to producing a fentanyl-like drug in West Kelowna more than seven months ago says only a small fraction of the substance that was found by police was actually an illegal drug.

Leslie McCulloch's home and commercial business were raided by police in March 2016, and police said they found hundreds of fake oxycontin pills, two industrial pill presses and over eight kilograms of “suspected fentanyl powder.”

In February 2017, McCulloch pleaded guilty to possession and production of acetylfentanyl, an analogue of fentanyl. He was granted bail following his guilty plea, to allow him to “get his affairs in order.”

In May, McCulloch found a new lawyer prior to sentencing.

On Tuesday, McCulloch adjourned his application to have the seized drug samples independently tested, to determine the exact quantity of the illegal acetylfentanyl in the seized drugs, after Crown counsel said they had already resent the drug samples for re-analysis.

“The RCMP have sent additional samples that were seized back to the Health Canada lab for what's called a quantitative and qualitative analysis, which was not available to them when this file came to light,” said Crown prosecutor Clarke Burnett.

The quantitative and qualitative analysis will determine the percentage of acetylfentanyl in the seized drugs.

Paul Gracia, McCulloch's new lawyer, says the eight kilograms of “suspected fentanyl powder” came back as “99.999 per cent nothing” during a previous analysis, and he believes the rest of the seized samples will come back with similar results.

McCulloch says the majority of the seized substance was “binder,” or an adhesive substance used to keep a pill's shape.

“They're junk pills,” Gracia said.

If the lab results come back as he expects, Gracia says he'll be arguing that the time McCulloch has already spent in jail is an appropriate sentence.

“The results will show the Crown they don't have the case they thought they had,” Gracia said.

On Aug. 31, Burnett said the Crown would be seeking a sentence "north of 10 years.” 

“They thought it was a big, massive production, a big distribution thing, when it wasn't,” McCulloch said Tuesday, adding the analysis will probably find “a couple grams, tops.”

McCulloch will next appear in court on Nov. 9 to find out the results of the drug analysis.