GUILTY AL - Gary Krist: Cocaine smuggling bust leads to underground lab in GA, March 2006

U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade of Alabama sentenced Gary Krist of Barrow County, Georgia, Thursday to five years and five months at a prison where Krist can receive drug and alcohol treatment.

The 61-year-old Krist was arrested last March at a private marina in Baldwin County, Alabama, after he returned from Colombia. Authorities say they found 14 kilograms of cocaine on a boat he had rented and four illegal immigrants who paid $6,000 each to come to America.

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Perhaps the most controversial pardon case was that of Gary Steven Krist. Krist made national headlines in 1968 when, at 23, he kidnapped an Emory University student, buried her in an underground vault and held her for ransom. The board paroled Krist after 10 years of his life sentence. It pardoned him in 1988 so he could pursue a medical degree because many licensing boards won’t consider an applicant with a criminal record without a pardon.

Krist’s medical career stalled because of his notoriety. In 2006 he was arrested in Mobile, Ala., for trying to smuggle 14 kilograms of cocaine. He was released from federal prison last month.

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