SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A Bay Area man who ran a drug lab in Richmond and relentlessly extorted a victim using threats and violence to obtain a drug-manufacturing recipe was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison on Friday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Joel Dowen, 46, of Concord, had pleaded guilty to mailing threatening communications with intent to extort, assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to manufacture and distribute MDA and bank fraud.
Dowen and his coconspirator, 47-year-old Micah-Luc Almeida of San Francisco, admitted that from 2020 to 2024 they conspired to manufacture and distribute large quantities of drugs, including MDA (3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine) and psilocin, the DOJ said. Agents would later seize hundreds of kilograms of waste material from attempted drug manufacturing after raiding the Richmond laboratory.
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“Dowen also admitted to engaging in a pattern of threats and violence against a victim and their family to extort the victim for millions of dollars and a drug-manufacturing recipe,” prosecutors wrote. “Dowen arranged for three individuals to violently assault the victim’s elderly father (then 80 years old) in his home, causing life-threatening injuries. After the assault, Dowen continued to threaten the victim and other members of the victim’s family and set the victim’s home on fire.”…