Topeka ? William Leonard Pickard was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison after being found guilty earlier this year of drug trafficking in what has been called the largest seizure by federal drug agents of an operable LSD lab, which was found in Wamego.

U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers also sentenced Pickard’s co-defendant, Clyde Apperson, to 30 years in prison.

Pickard, 58, of Mill Valley, Calif., and Apperson, 48, of Sunnyvale, Calif., were convicted in March of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute more than 10 grams of LSD and possession with intent to distribute the illegal drug.

Neither man is eligible for parole but Apperson’s sentence could be reduced up to 54 days a year for good behavior. Both men sat quietly in their orange jail suits and leg shackles as Rogers handed down the sentences.

They were arrested three years ago near a former missile silo near Wamego, where Drug Enforcement Administration agents said the LSD lab had been.

Apperson said nothing and Pickard made a brief statement in which he criticized the government’s chief witness, Gordon Todd Skinner, who received immunity for his testimony.

Attorneys for both men said they would appeal. Pickard’s attorney, Billy Rork, said his client didn’t receive a fair trial because he wasn’t allowed to introduce all the evidence he wanted.

During an 11-week trial that started in January, DEA agents testified they seized about 90 pounds of LSD, another 214 1/2 pounds of precursor lysergic acid, 52 pounds of byproduct iso-LSD, and nearly 43 pounds of the precursor ergocristine.

Prosecutors said no LSD was made at the Wamego silo, about 15 miles east of Manhattan, and the LSD found there came from elsewhere.

U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren said the DEA has made only four seizures of complete LSD labs, including Wamego, and three involved Pickard and Apperson.

During the two-day hearing, Rork challenged the amount of LSD the government said was seized in November 2000.

On Tuesday, Rork again raised the issue, saying, “If this had the strength the government said it did, Mr. Pickard should be either a babbling idiot or dead.”

But the judge said the DEA estimates were accurate, adding, “if anything they were conservative.”