Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508100083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They had their silk-screening craft in common. They liked to party. They enjoyed their drugs.
Then police caught Hoer with 189 hits of LSD. And he betrayed his friendship with Willett, hoping to get a reduced sentence.
On four separate occasions last year, Hoer walked into Willett's silk-screening shop in Roanoke's Wasena neighborhood and asked to purchase a variety of drugs - marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.
Willett always filled the requests at cost.
But the police were watching and listening to every transaction. And last month Willett, the 32-year-old owner of Benovie Graphics, pleaded no contest to seven drug charges.
Wednesday, a Roanoke Circuit judge convicted and sentenced Willett to 101/2 years behind bars. On hearing the sentence, Willett turned to his lawyer and said, "Oh my God."
William Maxwell argued that his client's drug sales were only an accommodation - meaning that Willett was not looking to turn a profit. An accommodation sale carries a lighter sentence.
Judge Robert P. Doherty accepted that argument for five of the offenses: For two counts of selling cocaine and three counts of selling methamphetamine, Willett received five years in prison.
But the judge saw the heroin transaction differently. He sentenced Willett to five years in prison on that charge and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine. For selling marijuana, a misdemeanor, he was sentenced to six months in jail.
The prison terms are to be served consecutively
Willett faced a maximum sentence of 91 years. According to prosecutors, he will be eligible for parole in about 18 months because the drug sales occurred before Jan. 1, when Virginia's no-parole law took effect.
Throughout his four-hour bench trial, Willett apologized for his actions, promising to stay clean, get help and continue to work at his graphics business.
"It was not my intention to affect the people of Wasena or my intention to harm anybody," Willett said. "I find these mistakes very bad. I'm very sorry. I apologize to my family, my friends, my employees."
To his supporters who testified Wednesday, Willett is a diligent entrepreneur who turned a fledgling graphics shop into a flourishing business. Benovie Graphics was Willett's life; the art of silk-screening his blood.
Since being charged, Willett has sought substance-abuse counseling and mental-health therapy and has remained drug free, Maxwell said.
Willett has struggled with drug addiction since he was a teen-ager, suffering at times from deep depression.
Drugs were a "Bohemian art trip," Willett testified Wednesday. It was a way, he said, "to see new things, open me up, see new dimensions."
Sometimes the drugs helped him stay awake and focused. And sometimes they enveloped him.
When Willett was caught with marijuana as a teen-ager and the charge was dismissed, he vowed to stay sober. He did, for a year. Then he tried methamphetamine and cocaine - psychologically bottoming out in 1991 with depression.
For two years afterward he remained drug free, he said. But he was tempted by the offerings of his friend, Hoer, who turned him on to methamphetamine and cocaine again, Willett said. By later that year, Willett also was using heroin. In October 1993 he overdosed and was near death in the emergency room.
Yet Willett's addiction was not totally debilitating. He purchased his graphics shop in 1992 and built a reputation as an honest salesman and a talented artist. Benovie Graphics was the embodiment of his dream.
It "means the world to me," he testified.
Between March and September 1994, Willett sold drugs to Hoer at his business. Hoer wore a hidden tape recorder while Roanoke vice detectives watched with video cameras from outside the store.
"I told Hoer I didn't sell the stuff, I said I was just giving it to him because he's a friend," Willett testified Wednesday. "He asked for it. He's my buddy. If that's what he wanted, that's what he could have."
Prosecutors have put off charging Hoer with distributing LSD until he is finished assisting authorities with this and other cases.
An employee of Benovie Graphics, William E. McCray, 34, is to be tried on two counts of distributing methamphetamine Aug. 28.
by CNB