Gordon Todd Skinner (born July 13, 1964) is an American criminal who was involved in the world's largest LSD dealing operation in the late 1990s and 2000. He worked with chemist William Leonard Pickard and their mover, Clyde Apperson, to manufacture and distribute LSD in and from Aspen, Colorado; Sante Fe, New Mexico; and two former missile silos in Salina and Wamego, Kansas.
Skinner grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In high school, he manufactured and dealt drugs like synthetic mescaline, despite his stepfather's employment by federal drug enforcement agencies—which had agents working in Skinner's house. In the 1980s, Skinner became an informant for such agencies. He once worked with the ONDCP on a sting operation that led to dealer José Abello Silva's arrest, which, in turn, led to the fall of the Colombian Medellín Cartel.
Skinner, Pickard, and Apperson then made tens of millions of dollars off their LSD operation. Skinner then grew paranoid about an imaginary murder that Pickard had committed, and in 2000, informed the DEA of the operation. This gave him absolute immunity from prosecution. On November 6, 2000, the DEA raided the Wamego silo as part of their investigation Operation White Rabbit. The raid allegedly caused a 95% decline in worldwide LSD availability by 2004.
Pickard and Apperson were sentenced to prison, while Skinner continued dealing drugs. In July 2003, he kidnapped and tortured his drug dealing apprentice, Brandon Green, in a hotel in Tulsa. Skinner was convicted, and given a sentence of life imprisonment plus 90 years.
Early life Gordon Todd Skinner, who was known by his friends as Todd, grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His biological father was Gordon H. Skinner, a chiropractor. Skinner's mother was a businesswoman named Katherine Magrini, who ran a spring manufacturer, Gardner Springs CompanyMcDougal 2020, p. 178. and a candy company, Katherine's Spring Gourmet Chocolates. She divorced Gordon H. Skinner after she caught him molesting a child for the second time, and then married William Inholf for 18 months. Afterwards, she married Gary Lee Magrini, who was a special criminal agent with the Department of the Treasury (which performed drug investigations at the time), as well the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Criminal Enforcement Agency and the Northern District of Oklahoma's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.McDougal 2020, p. 185.
Skinner went to Cascia Hall Preparatory School, a Catholic private school. He was good at math and chemistry, and in the latter, he had a great understanding of molecular structures.McDougal 2020, p. 177. At age 15, Skinner started being obsessed with drugs. At 16, he started extracting psychedelic tryptamines from plants and gave them to his friends and classmates, studying their reactions. He often brought a tank of nitrous oxide to school, which he and his friends inhaled from. He also bought many books on drugs. Though federal agents (of the Customs and Border Protection, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and IRS) frequently visited his home to meet with his stepfather, they either "didn't notice or didn't care" that Skinner was making drugs. His friend's father caught the two [Skinner and his friend] synthesizing DMT in Skinner's basement, and the father warned them that the practice was dangerous.
At age 19, Skinner acquired 10,000 peyote buttons from a Native American-owned church in Laredo, Texas, and stored them in the trunk of his car. He extracted alkaloid from them, to synthesize mescaline to sell to the Navajo Nation (who have a history of using mescaline synthesized from peyote). He wanted to sample it before selling, and got more into drug use after doing so. According to testimony Skinner later gave in court, he tried over 163 types of drugs in his life. Some of them were entheogens, which he took irregularly because they were "very spiritual" things to him. When he did, his method of ingesting them was "The Eucharist", a communion wafer tainted with lysergamide chemical compounds like ALD-52; extract from morning glory seeds; and ergot wine. He ingested the wafer with his friends in special ceremonies involving a sacrament, and Skinner's friends often referred to him as "the Buddha".McDougal 2020, pp. 178-179. After graduating high school in 1982, he studied at the Schiller International University in Germany, but failed his first semester.McDougal 2020, pp. 178, 185. He then returned to Oklahoma and worked at Gardner Springs Company.
Government informant career In spring 1984, Skinner became a government informant by calling the Tulsa FBI field office. He told the agent who responded that he had made a deal with a con artist in Texas, Sam Merit; he told Merit he was the heir to Gardner Springs Company, and offered to loan Merit $300,000 to invest in a Caribbean charter airline and build a fake gold mine in Arizona. The FBI found Skinner's tip to be true, and Merit eventually fled to South Africa after he and five co-conspirators were indicted for a penny stock fraud.McDougal 2020, pp. 179-180.
José Abello Silva operation Skinner spent the mid-80s between Hot Springs and Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as Tucson, Arizona, while working as an informant for the U.S. Department of Justice. Skinner was arrested twice for selling marijuana, in an area of Mexico near the border town of Sells, Arizona, and in Boston. He had helped minimize the fallout of those arrests by contributing to the downfall of the Colombian Medellín drug cartel. He had befriended a Colombian cocaine dealer named Boris Olarte, who had purchased a business from Skinner's mother, a custom chocolate brand named Okie Power. After purchasing this, Olarte had been arrested and put in a Tulsa County jail. Skinner used Magrini's connections to convince the DEA to put Olarte in witness protection, and use him against the cartel. Olarte worked with the Office of National Drug Control Policy in a sting operation which led to the arrest of Olarte's supplier, José Abello Silva, a major Medellín dealer. Olarte's wife, Clara Lacle (who lived with Magrini), flew to Aruba with FBI agents to set up Silva. His arrest in 1989 led to the downfall of the cartel. Skinner used his time as an informant to gather intelligence on how the government investigates drugs.McDougal 2020, pp. 179-186
New Jersey operation On January 26, 1989, Skinner was arrested in Camden, New Jersey for trafficking 42 pounds of marijuana with a friend. They were caught by undercover cops, and Skinner's bail was set at $1 million. Skinner spent a year in the state waiting for trial. His father convinced him to make a deal with authorities.McDougall 2020, pp. 180-181. In jail, Skinner had met John Worthy, who said he had 50 pounds (22.6 kg) of marijuana he was going to sell. Skinner went to the district attorney and made a deal, which reduced his bail to half a million. He returned to Tulsa, where he recorded his phone calls with Worthy. On the call, Skinner agreed to meet with him at a hotel in Vineland. Skinner sold 30 pounds of marijuana to Worthy, his wife Willie Mae, and partner Lamont Briscoe. He was wearing a wire, and was eavesdropped by the New Jersey Narcotics Strike Force. Worthy was arrested at the hotel, and a day later, Skinner pleaded guilty to one reduced count of conspiracy, and was given a three-year probation. The probation was terminated after 2 years. In 1995, Skinner's wiretaps and testimony were thrown out; the New Jersey Supreme Court found the "credibility and character of Skinner was... questionable".McDougal 2020, p. 186. While in jail, he met fellow inmate William Ernest Hauck, who was jailed for a sex offense. In the 1990s, Hauck would be a truck driver for Katherine's company, and worked with Skinner on his LSD distribution operation.
Caribbean operations His next case in 1989 was against brothers John and Horace Morgan in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The Morgans controlled multiple gas stations, a hotel, car rental, and the Fairfield Plantation Resort. The DEA claimed they led the local drug market for marijuana (including hashish) and cocaine. The plan was for him to convince John Morgan to meet Skinner in the Cayman Islands, where Skinner would sell him a boat full of marijuana, and Morgan would be arrested in Georgetown. On December 7, Skinner flew to Grand Cayman, and set up the sting operation with Gloucester County detectives and an agent from the DEA Miami field office. On February 20, 1990, Skinner flew to Jamaica, and using a series of aliases, he leased a 78-foot oil field utility boat. A hurricane wrecked the tanker, which he failed to insure, off the coast of Jamaica. The marijuana shipment was ruined. Cayman Islands customs officials boarded the boat and gave him one hour to leave the country. Skinner's friend, Joe Seligman, ended up paying for some part of the $80,000 in unpaid lease bills.
While in Jamaica, Skinner met Everett LaVay McKinley, a preacher from South Dakota who set up the World Fidelity Bank in Grenada. The bank promised a 48% return on investment, and 212 church members gave McKinley $5.5 million to invest, which was never returned to them—an act of securities fraud. McKinley tried to involve Skinner in the scam, and Skinner testified to authorities about it. McKinley was sentenced to 27 years.McDougal 2020, pp. 181-182.
1980s and 1990s personal life As Skinner was informing the government about fraudsters, he was committing fraud himself. He opened an account with a Philadelphia brokerage house that specialized in foreign currency options, again claiming he was an heir to his mother's fortune. He claimed to Tulsa World that he sat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and managed a currency trading company called FINIX. When his margins were called six months later, it was found he owed over $1.5 million. In 1992, a jury found Skinner and his mother guilty of bankruptcy fraud, regarding his scheme in Philadelphia. The defendants were awarded $1.15 million, and Skinner's mother paid $100,000.McDougal 2020, pp. 185-186. This led to Skinner filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Tulsa in 1992. That year, he also became addicted to prescription painkillers,McDougal 2020, p. 182. and married Oklahoma State University medical student Kelly Sue Rothe. They had a daughter and a son.McDougal 2020, p. 196.
In July 1996, Skinner bought a decommissioned U.S. Air Force Atlas-E missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. He bought it for $40,000 with a trust he created, the Wamego Land Trust, on which he installed his junior high school science teacher, Graham Kendall, as trustee. The idea was to use it as a manufacturing facility for Gardner Springs Company. Several locals went on an employee payroll for the facility.McDougal 2020, pp. 196-204.