Photo Gallery | Deputies: 2 arrested after operating meth lab inside vacant home

Officers with the Lexington County Multi-Agency Narcotics Enforcement Team (NET) and Lexington County Sheriff’s Department arrested two men they say operated a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory at a vacant home.

Deputies say on Tuesday, January 22  officers arrested 34-year-old Roger Allan Lee, Jr. and 32-year-old Charles Richard Richter on charges that the two operated a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory at an unoccupied home on Joye Street near West Columbia.

The report said deputies, who were acting on a tip, went to the empty home at 1642 Joye Street at about 5:20 p.m. on Tuesday. As the deputies approached the home, they detected a strong chemical odor emanating from the residence that they recognized from training that they had received as an indication that a methamphetamine laboratory was being operated at the home, the report stated.

According to sheriff’s deputies, shortly after officers arrived at the home, Lee and Richter walked out of the residence.

Deputies placed Lee and Richter in investigative detention.

Deputies also requested assistance from NET officers in further investigating the clandestine methamphetamine laboratory at the home.

The report said NET officers executed a search warrant at the residence and found a one-liter plastic soda bottle on the front porch that actively was being used as a reaction vessel to manufacture methamphetamine. 

Lee and Richter were being held on Wednesday, January 23 at the Lexington County Detention Center while awaiting bond hearings.