Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240235
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TROOPER SNIFFS, MAKES MOONSHINE ARREST
Maybe William Gray "Dee" Stanley should have quit while he was ahead.Stanley, a Franklin County man with a record of moonshine convictions, has been acquitted twice since 1989 in moonshine cases that authorities believed were open and shut.
Stanley may have pressed his luck too far.
He was charged in Rockingham County earlier this week with possession of untaxed whiskey.
Authorities say Stanley was stopped for speeding Tuesday while driving north on Interstate 81 near Harrisonburg in a pickup truck loaded with 364 gallons of moonshine.
State Trooper W.C. Byrd told the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record that he became suspicious after he climbed out of his patrol car and got a potent whiff of whiskey.
"When I walked past the side of the truck it just about knocked me down," he told the newspaper.
After obtaining Stanley's permission to search the vehicle, the trooper discovered the whiskey - bottled in one-gallon plastic jugs - stored in the truck bed beneath a camper shell.
Stanley, 46, also was charged with speeding and failure to wear a safety belt.
A trial on the misdemeanor moonshiner possession charge is scheduled for March 12 in Rockingham General District Court.
Authorities believe Stanley was transporting the whiskey to buyers in Philadelphia or another Eastern city where there is a market for the harsh, clear alcohol.
Liquor agents believe the whiskey seized in Rockingham County had been manufactured at a still raided Tuesday in the Endicott section of Franklin County.
A truck registered to Stanley's wife was seized at the still site, according to J.E. Beheler, a special agent with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Stanley has not been charged in connection with the still, but agents arrested two men, Jimmy Lee Furrow, 44, of Rocky Mount and Steven Mark Finkelstein, 40, of Ferrum.
Stanley could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In the past four years, liquor agents believed on two occasions that they had the goods on Stanley, only to have two separate juries find him not guilty.
In 1988, Stanley was arrested near his Rocky Mount home in a pickup truck loaded with 246 gallons of moonshine and charged in U.S. District Court with manufacturing untaxed whiskey. A jury later found him not guilty.
In 1990, state agents raided a still in a garage behind Stanley's house and charged him with making moonshine. A Franklin County jury later found him not guilty.
Asked about prosecuting Stanley, Rockingham prosecutor Bruce Morris remarked, "It sounds like a challenge."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.