Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250349
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NEELY SAYS HE'S ALCOHOLIC, NOT CRIMINAL
Keith Neely tried to convince a federal court jury Wednesday that he is just a slightly fallen lawyer who drank too much and snorted cocaine.He is not the rogue attorney who federal prosecutors say used his Christiansburg law practice as a cover for cocaine smuggling, he told the jury.
Neely, 43, readily admitted that his judgment was blurred by drink and cocaine. "I'm an alcoholic. . . . If cocaine was around drinking, I would do it."
But he insisted he never arranged drug operations and never laundered drug profits for himself, friends or business partners.
"No! No! No! No! No!" Neely responded each time his attorney, Marvin Miller of Alexandria, asked him if he arranged drug deals in the late 1980s with any of the five key government witnesses against him.
Neely and his attorneys have accused federal prosecutors of being out to get him because he defended drug dealers and because of his flashy "Miami Vice" lifestyle.
They contend that the key government witnesses are liars and major drug dealers who have been given breaks or outright immunity in exchange for their testimony against Neely.
One, Donald Kimbler, a fired federal firearms agent, was freed last month from a 15-year drug sentence so that he can go home to Florida to die from cancer. He testified that Neely helped him arrange for routine shipments of 10- to 16-ounce packages of cocaine from Florida to Montgomery County in the late 1980s. And, he said, Neely got one-third of the profit.
In testimony Wednesday, Neely accused Karen Peters, the federal prosecutor in the trial, of threatening to get him as a result of a run-in with her at an earlier trial in which he was the defense attorney. He said Peters was angry at him because of his efforts to question an FBI agent, and told him afterwards " `that was a low blow,' and I would get mine."
Peters has denied being out to get Neely. But in opening arguments she said Neely is not just a sick, drugged-out lawyer. Instead, she contended, he is a corrupter who used his law practice to promote and conceal drug dealing.
Although Neely denied participating in any drug smuggling operations with Kimbler or any of the government's other witnesses, he admitted obtaining cocaine from them and using it. But when Peters asked him if he ever bought cocaine from any of the men, he said he couldn't remember because his memory is fuzzy from all the drugs and alcohol he used.
The only time in his testimony that Neely lost control was when his attorney asked him how much his law practice means to his life.
Neely bowed his head, fought back tears, sniffled and said, "It's all of it."
He says he expects to lose his license next month when the Virginia State Bar, which regulates lawyers in the state, holds a hearing to determine if he should be disbarred or suspended. That hearing is being held because of Neely's 1990 conviction for possession of cocaine.
He was placed on probation as a result of that incident, in which he was filmed by a hidden police camera snorting cocaine with a female informant.
Losing his law license is nothing compared to what Neely stands to lose if the jury doesn't believe him.
Neely could be sentenced to 20 years or more with no parole on charges of racketeering, drug dealing, money laundering, promoting marijuana farming in a national forest and using drugs to obtain secret information from a federal grand jury.
The jury is expected to begin deliberations today.