THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610280050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 108 lines
Nathaniel Richardson has beaten almost every charge against him in Portsmouth state courts. This past week, his attorney told a federal jury that it, too, should find Richardson - allegedly one of Portsmouth's most savvy drug distributors - not guilty.
The jurors never heard how a Portsmouth jury acquitted Richardson, 24, of murder in 1994. Or how another jury found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter after he shot and killed his girlfriend last year.
Instead, they heard a web of evidence that connected Richardson with high-level international drug smugglers and a group of street dealers who dumped crack cocaine and heroin into Portsmouth's Southside Gardens.
Defense attorneys called testimony in the case, which has lasted a week, a ``parade of drug addicts and dealers'' who testified to save their own skins. But prosecutors asked: Who else would know about Richardson's alleged operations besides ``insiders'' in Portsmouth's lucrative drug trade?
After closing arguments Friday, the jurors retired to deliberate. They will continue today.
Testimony included stories of large amounts of drug money stashed in shoe boxes, gym bags and dresser drawers and mysteriously buried in the ground; tales of drug smugglers flying to Suriname in South America, and one story about the shady sale of an Acura for a duffel bag of cash.
Witnesses included a woman who stunned attorneys with her revelation that she was a heroin addict who last shot up that morning, and a ``jailhouse snitch'' who allegedly gained Richardson's confidence while awaiting trial.
There was a long string of addicts and dealers who described the open-air drug market in the playground at Southside Gardens, a market allegedly supplied by Richardson.
The picture of Richardson that emerged was of a careful drug distributor who had become savvy about the law. Richardson, his dealers said, ``never touched the stuff'' and was careful never to keep drugs on his person, in his home or in his car.
Two others, Jermaine Golden and Avery Lawton, who face drug conspiracy charges with Richardson, were described as distributors who engaged in good-natured crack-selling competitions.
A local car salesman testified that Richardson wanted to buy a new Acura NSX but changed his mind when told it would cost about $84,000. In return for a cash tip, the salesman arranged for Richardson to buy a used NSX from a private citizen.
When the citizen arrived at the dealership, he was escorted to a spare-parts room instead of the showroom offices. There, he and Richardson allegedly counted out $44,500 in cash. The title, testimony revealed, was then made out in the name of Isaac Lamb, not Richardson. That, prosecutors argued, amounted to money laundering.
Defense attorneys asked jurors to ask themselves: If Richardson was making so much cash from the drug ring, where did the money go? Prosecution witnesses said Richardson built his grandmother a house, put an addition on his mother's house and even built a church on County Street.
One witness said Richardson told him he had buried large amounts of cash because he couldn't put it in the bank and didn't trust anyone with it while he was in jail.
Testimony showed Richardson apparently did have some difficulty knowing what to do with large amounts of cash. Money was found in shoe boxes, with clothes in a dresser drawer and stuffed in a shirt in a car seat.
Defense attorneys said Richardson made the cash gambling. Witnesses testified that Richardson made $10,000 in one craps game at a motel adjacent to Southside Gardens.
Perhaps the most damaging witness was Pamela Wright, who told the jury she made a trip to South America to bring drugs back to Hampton Roads through Miami. Those drugs, she testified, were sold to Richardson in her presence.
Wright, 38, also testified of cans of liquid cocaine coming from New York to be cooked into crack and sold to Richardson. ``He had a blue gym bag. First he took out some old rags, then money. He counted the money on the dining room table,'' Wright testified.
She described packing thousands of dollars in cash in her luggage to fly to Suriname. There, she was met by a woman who took her to a home fortified with metal gates and bars.
``I brought back three kilos on my body,'' she said, describing coming through Miami to Hampton Roads. The next night, she testified, the powder was cooked into crack and one of the kilos was sold to Richardson.
On the next and last trip to South America, Wright said she stopped by Morrison's Cafeteria in Virginia Beach, where an associate picked up cash from Richardson.
This time, despite packaging the cocaine to hide it on her body and spreading grease over the packages to keep drug-sniffing dogs from picking up the scent, Wright was arrested in Miami. She testified in return for a reduction in charges and sentencing as part of a plea agreement, she said.
Another damaging witness was Lucius Alston, labeled a ``jailhouse snitch'' by the defense. He said he befriended Richardson when the two were in adjacent cells in Virginia Beach jail.
``He told me he was the man,'' Alston testified. ``He was in charge of a large drug ring. He told me who he thought the witnesses against him were going to be. . . . He said everybody who testified would be dead. . . . He offered me $25,000 to kill (one of them).''
Alston said Richardson told him he was making $400,000 to $500,000 a month from his drug business.
Richardson's attorney, Keith Kimball, offered no evidence in the case. He argued that prosecutors had not proved that Richardson was a dealer or ran a drug gang.
``You'd think that if all this was going on, at some point police would have found drugs on Nathaniel Richardson,'' Kimball said. ``There were no undercover buys. There is an absence of evidence. This man's life, liberty and freedom are at stake. If you find a reasonable doubt, you must acquit.''
Prosecutor Laura Tayman assured the jury that the evidence against Richardson was ``plentiful.'' ILLUSTRATION: During Nathaniel Richardson's trial, a long string of
addicts and dealers described the open-air market in Portsmouth's
Southside Gardens, a market he had allegedly supplied. His attorney
said the witnesses merely were trying to save their own skins.
KEYWORDS: DRUGS ILLEGAL DRUG TRIAL DRUG DEALER by CNB