Neal Carl Pearson

An Orange County lawyer involved in a drug ring that shipped tons of marijuana to the West Coast from Southeast Asia was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall imposed the sentence on Neal Carl Pearson, 52, who, through his Tustin law office, assembled a phony partnership using the names of dead people to launder funds for the narcotics ring, the largest known operation of its sort.

An Orange County lawyer involved in a drug ring that shipped tons of marijuana to the West Coast from Southeast Asia was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall imposed the sentence on Neal Carl Pearson, 52, who, through his Tustin law office, assembled a phony partnership using the names of dead people to launder funds for the narcotics ring, the largest known operation of its sort.