ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605130069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON AND JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITERS
NOTE: Below
Henry County leaders called for help after a national magazine reported on out-of-control crack dealing in Sandy Level, a small community near the North Carolina line.
Only thing was, federal drug agents - aided by state and local police - were already on the case.
Political pressure necessitated a show of concern to the public last month, with state Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore and state police Superintendent Wayne Huggins flying down to meet with county leaders and hold a news conference.
Drug agents on the front line of a dangerous sting operation in Sandy Level feared the publicity would jeopardize their five-month undercover work.
Luckily, they say, it didn't.
Friday, dozens of state, federal and local law enforcement officers swooped into Sandy Level at 6 a.m. and arrested 10 people they believe are "the movers and shakers" of the crack trade there.
They caught the suspects off guard. When agents barged into one trailer, they found a 16-year-old boy asleep with his hand on a gun, said Don Lincoln, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Roanoke office.
Another suspect was busy trying to flush his crack cocaine down the toilet, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis.
Agents confiscated 20 guns - ranging from an AK-47 assault-style weapon to semiautomatic handguns - as well as crack, marijuana and about $20,000 in cash.
One suspect was still at large, but the nine adults arrested Friday morning appeared before a federal magistrate in Roanoke a few hours later. Several were arrested barefoot and without shirts. One, Telly Savalas Keen, borrowed a shirt from a federal employee to wear to court.
Asked if he's named after the bald actor, Keen smiled and said, "Yep, my momma loved him."
Keen and most of the other suspects appeared unshaken by their arrests.
Several of those arrested sat on a courtroom bench in leg shackles and chuckled while reading the Martinsville afternoon newspaper's account of the raid.
They are all charged with conspiracy and distribution of cocaine. Several face an additional charge of carrying a firearm during drug trafficking. The DEA estimates the group was moving one or two kilograms of crack a week, and estimates that it is responsible for bringing in 20 kilos to the area from New York.
Charges against the 16-year-old boy are sealed. It's rare for a juvenile to be charged in federal court, and prosecutors haven't decided how to handle his case.
Wolthuis characterized the operation - other than the publicity - as "just another run-of-the-mill drug case."
Police believe crack dealers in Sandy Level are responsible for the November killing of Richard Scott Powell, a North Carolina man who drove across the border to buy crack. They also believe drug dealers shot and wounded a woman days after she called police to complain about crime.
Charges for the killing and the shooting weren't placed Friday, but Lincoln said a .44 Magnum rifle was taken into evidence and will be tested to see if it was used to kill Powell.
Police hope Friday's sting will win over residents who have been terrorized by the violence but refused to help officers out of fear. Those arrested will be tried in federal court, which promises harsher bond conditions and stiffer prison sentences than what they would face in state court.
"If we can demonstrate to people in Sandy Level that we can get these guys and keep them, ... convince them we'll do what we say we're going to do and ask for cooperation, maybe we'll start getting it," Lincoln said.
A story in the April 22 edition of U.S. News & World Report made Sandy Level - known as "Logtown" to locals - a symbol for the crack problem in rural communities. Law enforcement had to keep silent about the operation, even as the media reported they were unable to deal with the problem.
"We had to eat it when the story came down," Lincoln said.
Since January, informants have made more than 20 crack buys monitored by law enforcement. Friday's roundup of suspects ended the operation several months earlier than had been planned. But it was the suspects' escalating violence that prompted Friday's raid, not publicity, Lincoln said.
One of the group's couriers was arrested during an unrelated, routine drug check at a Richmond bus station last month, as she returned from New York with a kilogram of crack, according to the DEA. Her Sandy Level employers thought she had ripped off their drugs and began threatening everyone the courier knew.
One of the men charged, Steven Dickerson, 23, brutally pistol-whipped the man who introduced the courier, according to a sworn affidavit by Bill Purcell, a state trooper assigned to the DEA's regional task force and the lead agent on the case.
Dickerson sleeps with a gun under his pillow, according to Purcell, and on more than one occasion said he would use it against police.
"We can't risk them going crazy," Lincoln said.
After the U.S. News article, local reporters did their own follow-ups. The coverage prompted a swift response from Henry County leaders: the news conference that drug agents feared would send Sandy Level's crack dealers into hiding.
But the dealers who have terrorized this community of 800 weren't easily scared.
Even after the April 22 news conference, "we sent people in, and [the dealers] joked about it, laughed about it with our people," Purcell said.
Drug agents involved with the sting jokingly refer to the meeting and news conference that Monday as "Apocalypse Now," because Kilgore and Huggins arrived via state police helicopter, swooping down from the sky and landing in the grass outside the Henry County Administration Building in Collinsville.
They had been summoned to Henry County by Sheriff Frank Cassell, prosecutor Bob Bushnell and County Administrator Sid Clower to help combat the well-publicized drug problems.
Cassell said Friday that the Sandy Level sting operation wasn't discussed at all April22.
"We had a couple of civilians in the meeting, and we wanted to be sure that we were real tight-lipped about what was going on," he said.
Cassell said he assumed that Kilgore and Huggins were aware of the ongoing drug investigation.
"It never crossed my mind" that the the news conference could jeopardize that operation, Cassell said. "If that U.S. News & World Report article didn't tip the drug dealers off, I don't know what else would."
Kilgore said he was aware of the sting operation before the meeting in Henry County. He said the meeting was held to discuss state resources that could help Henry County's drug problem in general.
Cassell says the news conference and the national magazine article served their purpose.
On the eve of Friday's raid, Gov. George Allen's administration announced that it was responding to "the Sandy Level crisis" by giving Henry County money for two additional drug investigators. The state grant will help offset a Sheriff's Office request that was turned down by the county Board of Supervisors recently.
The county Sheriff's Office "is the winner in this thing," Cassell said.
Sandy Level resident Tracy Clark just hopes his hometown comes out a winner, too.
Clark's mother, Bernice, was the woman who was shot six times by drug dealers.
He has lived all of his 29 years in Sandy Level and knows most of the people arrested Friday.
"It's a wonderful thing," he said.
Of the community's future, he said: "I hope this isn't the end of it. This won't be last time the police need to come down here."
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Law officers lead Steven O.by CNBDickerson (front) and Sherman L. Foye to Drug Enforcement
Administration offices in Roanoke on Friday. color. Graphic: Map by
staff. color.