Kingpin 2.0?

In the end, two of Chris Smith’s codefendants, Bruce Liebermann and Dan Adkins, were acquitted. Darrell Griepp pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to two years probation. Phillip Mach, the New Jersey doctor who wrote the prescriptions, was convicted, but is currently serving only eighteen months in exchange for his cooperation. Smith’s bodyguard, Ronald Miller, was convicted of bulk cash smuggling and is serving a thirteen-month sentence. Former spammer Scott Poe is still at large. No one at any of the small-town pharmacies was charged.

Since Smith’s sentencing last August, I’ve spoken with him several times by phone. (The warden of the Big Sandy supermax facility in Inez, Kentucky, has refused to permit in-person interviews because of “security issues” associated with “raising the profile of the prisoner.”) Even at a distance, Smith is a naive charmer—he seems to truly believe that he has done nothing wrong. He says the alleged conspiracy to kill a federal witness was completely blown out of proportion during the trial. He was just “blowing off steam over Anita,” he says, and he was never indicted on that charge anyway. Ironically, he blames his erratic behavior during the trial on the feds’ cutting off his medication. “I have severe ADHD, man,” he says. “And when they took me off Xanax, I would have panic attacks. I’m on lithium now, and look at my file—not one problem since they started medicating me.”

Since his incarceration, Anita has divorced him and is raising their son, who’s now seven, by herself in the Lakeville house the government is threatening to confiscate. Smith is concentrating on his forthcoming appeal, but with his assets frozen or seized, he’s been forced to let his high-priced counsel go and to retain a public defender. Smith’s parents and sister are devastated, and his mother refuses to talk to the media. Chris, who has attempted to kill himself, according to Kyrilis, remains defiant and angry about being made an example.

“There are still plenty of Internet pharmacies,” Smith says, alluding to more permissive cultures where a twenty-five-year-old behind the wheel of a Ferrari doesn’t raise eyebrows. “If I would’ve been in Florida, I would’ve been fine,” he says. Like a good jailhouse lawyer, he’s spent months parsing the “Was this standard medical practice?” question directed to the jury and cites a litany of cases he says will exonerate him.

He says, “They think we all got together and sat in a room and said we’re going to do this big illegal drug enterprise and we all know it’s wrong, and we’re going to do it right in the middle of Burnsville instead of some other country, and we’re just gonna break all these laws and do it knowingly and willingly—that’s what they want to believe happened. It’s ridiculous.”

He denies Friedberg’s account of turning down a five-year deal.

He disputes, moreover, the idea that his conduct during the trial brought him down. “If I had been an angel and never done anything on pretrial release, the least the judge could’ve given me is thirty years,” he insists. “I’m not guilty! They wanted me to lie and say that what the doctor was doing was illegal, what the pharmacy was doing was illegal, what my employees were doing was illegal, and Joe wanted me to lie for them, and when I wouldn’t, then all of sudden I’m lying because I didn’t go with the story they wanted.

“Any time you’re innovating and being a pioneer in something, you’re going to be on the line. Look at the guy who sold the Girls Gone Wild videotapes, Joe Francis. He’s sitting in a Las Vegas jail right now—for what? You know what I’m saying? People don’t like the fact that he makes $100 million on eighteen-year-old girls. They have daughters, you know what I mean, and they just don’t like it. Is it illegal? No, it’s not. Is he going to have his day in court? Probably, you know what I mean? The issue is nobody’s going to like it, and they’re going to rub that shit in the face of the jury, the whole Girls Gone Wild thing, and he’s lucky to live in Las Vegas instead of Minneapolis. If he’s in Minneapolis, he might as well just pack up and move away.”

When you ask Smith why he didn’t leave the Twin Cities for good—to find someplace more permissive, where he could operate without all that upright Midwestern scrutiny on the part of his neighbors—he doesn’t hesitate before responding.

“I had family here, man,” he says. “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I think I did something wrong when I was unfaithful to my wife. And I ignored my kid a lot for the business. But as far as the business goes, I think it was completely legal, and I think when the appeals court rules, they are going to exonerate me completely.”