Cranston Meth Cook Sentenced to Federal Prison Term

A Cranston man who admitted to cooking meth in an elderly housing complex will serve two years in federal prison after being sentenced on Friday.

Nicholas Selser, 33, will serve 24 months after he was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith.

Selser will also serve three years of supervised release once he gets out of jail.

Selser, along with an accomplice who has not been sentenced yet, Michael Fortes, 48, pleaded guilty to all charges in July following their arrest in February for running the meth lab. They were indicted in March.

Court records show the pair manufactured methamphetamine inside their D’Evan manor apartment and had cooked up at least 11 batches using the “one pot” method prior to as raid by Cranston police officers, members of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Drug Task Force and the DEA’s Clandestine Laboratory Enforcement Team of New Hampshire.

During the raid, agents seized chemicals, supplies and items used to make meth, which “is often times a dangerous process which may result in explosion or fire,” said U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha.

The “one pot” method can produce meth in about an hour. It entails using an empty container to combine ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, camping fuel or some other ether product, sulfuric acid, ammonia nitrate powder, lithium strips from batteries and lye or some other sodium hydroxide product with water to produce liquid methamphetamine.

The meth liquid is poured off, leaving waste byproduct. Then the liquid is gassed off, producing the final product.

“The containers will often leak dangerous chemicals because the containers cannot always withstand the pressure produced by the chemical reactions,” Neronha said.

City records show D’Evan manor, located at 1214 Cranston St., has an occupancy of 127. The four-story brick apartment complex was built in 1980 and is a senior low-income housing apartment complex subsidized by the federal government’s Housing and Urban Development division.

Court records show that the men cooked up at least 11 batches of meth in the apartment.

Residents of the complex were shocked to learn that there were dangerous and potentially explosive chemicals and an operating meth lab inside their building.

Selser and Fortes pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy, knowingly manufacturing methamphetamine, possession of pseudoephedrine with the intent to manufacture methamphetamine and possessing equipment to manufacture methamphetamine.

Fortes is due to be sentenced on Oct. 29.