Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 5, 1994                   TAG: 9402050104
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SANDBOX DRUG DEALER CONVICTED

Rodney J. Noel, 23, was convicted Thursday night by a jury in Roanoke Circuit Court.

He was one of about 15 people arrested last year after Roanoke police, responding to complaints of drug dealing in Melrose Park Northwest, set up a surveillance center in a nearby vacant house.

Vice detectives testified during the trial that they used video cameras and binoculars to watch Noel's brazen drug dealing in broad daylight.

"He set up shop in a public park," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Nagel said, asking jurors to impose a prison sentence.

"He did it where little children could see and perhaps think this is the normal thing people do when they grow up."

Unlike most drug cases in which a defendant is accused of making a single sale - usually on a street corner in the dark of night - Noel's trial pictured the full day of a drug dealer, captured on videotape and still camera.

Detective D.G. Underwood testified he saw Noel arrive at Melrose Park on a bicycle the morning of May 13.

Walking to the sand box, Noel crouched down and used both hands to dig up something buried near a sliding board, Underwood testified. Over the next few hours, police watched Noel make repeated trips from behind a tree to the street, where he met briefly with motorists and passersby.

When police moved in, they found 20 rocks of crack cocaine in the sandbox and next to the tree.

But because the video was taken from a distance, jurors could not tell for sure if drugs and money exchanged hands.

"The commonwealth is asking you to deprive [Noel] of his liberty based on what they think might have happened," defense attorney Melvin Hill told jurors in asking for an acquittal.

In recent years, Melrose Park has become a gathering place not just for young children and basketball players, but also for drug dealers.

Lt. B.S. Lugar of the Roanoke Police Department said authorities decided to set up a surveillance station in a nearby vacant house.

Arriving early in the morning so as not to attract suspicion, vice detectives spent long hours in the house watching for drug dealers. They were not disappointed.

"We have quite a few cases pending" as a result of the operation, Lugar said.

Noel had faced a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. The jury sentenced him to 10 years; a judge will impose the sentence later.