Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 27, 1990 TAG: 9004270962
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Short
Anthony McCray was convicted Thursday of charges including conspiracy, extortion and threatening to harm Melissa Brannen if her mother, Tammy Brannen, failed to come up with $75,000 within 36 hours on Feb. 15.
The jury took two hours to reach its verdict and the defendant stood motionless next to his attorney when the verdict was read.
U.S. District Court Judge Albert Bryan set sentencing for June 27.
Emmett Grier, a 20-year-old former Howard University student, pleaded guilty last week to the same charges that McCray, his former roommate, faced. Greer, the son of a Detroit police officer, will also be sentenced in June.
Neither man was implicated in the disappearance of Melissa Brannen, who was last seen on Dec. 3, 1989. No one has been charged in that case.
U.S. Attorney Henry Hudson, who prosecuted the case, said a key piece of evidence in McCray's two-day trial was a statement the defendant signed Feb. 15, just hours after he and Grier were picked up by FBI agents outside a Howard University dormitory in Washington, D.C.
McCray testified that he told the agents he orchestrated the plot because he did not want friends who had been inadvertently in the case to get in trouble.
by CNB