Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003290768
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Robotham, who maintains his innocence, was convicted by a jury in January of conspiring to distribute more than 50 grams of crack.
The 34-year-old Robotham was one of the first suspects arrested in Operation Caribbean Sunset, a drug sweep that began last July in an effort to rid Roanoke of crack dealers. Authorities have said that Robotham often used his Northeast Roanoke home and his business, the Tropicana Market on 10th Street Northwest, as a base for the sales.
"I don't know if there will ever be any justice," Robotham told Judge James Turk. "I ask that you have mercy on me."
Turk told Robotham that the evidence against him was overwhelming "although you still say you are not guilty."
"But the drug problem is a terminal scourge on this country," Turk said. "Something has to be done to clean up the situation."
Defense attorneys Chester Smith and Easter Moses asked that Robotham be given a new trial. They cited several reasons, including a bomb threat at the Poff Federal Building that they said may have prejudiced the jury during the January trial. Turk ruled against the motions.
Agents who raided Robotham's Forest Hill Avenue home last summer found several ounces of cocaine, scales and $2,660 in cash banded and stored in a videocassette box. A raid two weeks later of a Wayne Street apartment - which Robotham said he was renting for his cousin - turned up a "stash pad" in which the cocaine derivative was manufactured and packaged for sale.
In the apartment, agents found scales; plastic bags; an industrial heat sealer used to seal the bags; a cooking pot, in which powdered cocaine was heated to produce crack; and a small note pad in which was written the names of who was selling, who was buying and who owed what amount of money.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant questioned Robotham on Wednesday about his possible involvement with the Shower Posse, a Jamaican organized crime group that has infiltrated the United States.
Robotham, who testified at his sentencing, said repeatedly that he had no connection to the group, but did know of them from his work as a detective with the Kingston Police Department in Jamaica.
Robotham wants to appeal, Smith said.
In other cases Wednesday:
Two Connecticut brothers, whose mother counsels teens against drug use, were sentenced to 70 months in prison each for selling crack.
Maurice L. Hagwood, 29, and Charles W. Hagwood, 26, were convicted with two other men last year of selling crack. The men claimed they stopped in Roanoke temporarily last July on their way to a family reunion in Martinsville.
Authorities who raided their motel rooms the night of July 10 found about 12 grams of cocaine underneath a tissue dispenser and $3,750 in cash, stashed in a suitcase belonging to the Hagwoods' sister. Charles Hagwood had another $1,750 on him, Assistant U.S Attorney Joseph Mott said.
A New York man who admitted last year that he sold drugs to raise bail and legal fees for his brother was sentenced to 22 years in prison with no chance of parole.
"It hurts me to give a young man like you such a long sentence," Turk told Mark Anthony Jackson. "More than 20 years without eligibility of parole is a long, long sentence. But I have to abide by the guidelines."
The 22-year sentence was the minimum Turk could have given Jackson under federal sentencing guidelines. The maximum was 27 years.
Jackson, 21, and his mother, Lily Battles, pleaded guilty during a jury trial in October to selling crack cocaine to get Keith Ray Smith out of jail. Smith, Jackson's brother and Battles' son, had been arrested in Roanoke on a charge of possessing crack with intent to distribute.
by CNB