Ten people, including a Valdosta man, have been arrested on charges they sold ecstasy-like designer drugs and similar chemicals over the Internet, causing at least two fatal and 14 nonfatal overdoses, investigators said Thursday.

Among those arrested in “Operation Web Tryp” were April Curtis, 45, of Carefree, Ariz., and Doug Thompson, 33, of Valdosta, operators of www.racresearch.com. They were arrested Wednesday on charges of conspiracy to distribute controlled drug analogues out of the Southern District of New York. The site has been linked to non-fatal overdoses of two college students.

Thompson, formerly of 1512 McLeod Road and listed at 41 Buck Street, worked at the Lowndes County Jail from April 1997 until April 1999, when he quit without notice, an official with the Lowndes County Jail said.

Also facing charges is Raymond Duncan of California.

Testimony offered in the warrant given by Detective Nicholas Davella of the New York Police Department said records kept by Federal Express from April 2003 until Feb. 2004 show Thompson receiving shipments from Curtis in Valdosta and Scottsdale, Az. Davella also offered information on the pair taken from their e-mail correspondence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office warrants.

Thompson had a bond hearing Wednesday in Albany, where his bond was set at $15,000, of which 10 percent must be secured, said Pam Lightsey, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Thompson made bond Thursday morning. His preliminary hearing has been scheduled for 3 p.m. Aug. 3 in Albany.

A DEA news release said one Web site operator sold an estimated $20,000 worth per week, and another had been in business more than five years.

One death was that of James Edwards Downs, 22, of St. Francisville, La. An indictment handed down Wednesday against Michael Burton, 25, of Las Vegas, accuses him of causing Downs’ death — not as a murder charge, but as a way to increase any sentence for selling illegal drugs.

Burton’s roommate, Keith Russart, 25, also was arrested. He and Burton were charged on four counts each of distributing designer drug “analogues,” said U.S. Attorney David Dugas of Baton Rouge.

Three of the five Web sites could not be reached Thursday. The fourth brought up a screen stating that the DEA had “restrained” it.

The fifth — Burton’s site — carries a 650-word statement that, among other things, the drugs were being bought for research and not for human consumption. People entering the site also had to agree that, if they violated the agreement and anything happened to them, they would pay for the seller’s defense.

The DEA listed three groups of hallucinogens and other drugs: tryptamines and phenylethylamines, which are related to important brain chemicals; and piperazines, which are related to a drug used for pinworms and roundworms.

“Many young people are led to believe that these substances are a form of ‘legal’ Ecstasy or LSD because they produce similar hallucinogenic effects. … Many have the false impression that they are not as harmful or addictive as mainstream drugs such as heroin or cocaine,” the DEA said.

However, it said, recommended dosages can vary by as little as a milligram, so a slight miscalculation can cause death.

Downs bought 1,000 milligrams of an Ecstasy analogue called 2C-T-21, Dugas said at a news conference. He died March 8, three days after his mother took him to a hospital. His fever had hit 108 degrees, high enough to leave brain damage had he survived.

The other death was that of an 18-year-old in Virginia who had bought drugs from a landscaping supplies site. One of his friends told investigators that drugs bought from the same site had left him “suffering from seizures, floating spots in his vision, memory lapses, uncontrollable teeth grinding and large lumps that would appear and disappear periodically on his face and neck.”

A New York college student who had bought drugs from a site operated by an Arizona woman and a Georgia man suffers from chronic, violent seizures as a result of the drugs, the DEA said.



The Associated Press contributed to this story.