LIFER KEEPS DAUGHTER OUT OF STATE PRISON

Ronald Whethers sat in a Greensburg courtroom and wiped the tears from
his eyes yesterday as he watched his daughter, Rachel, plead guilty to
helping him run an illicit drug ring from his Westmoreland County
Prison cell.

Moments later, Whethers entered his own pleas: no contest to a
third-degree murder charge and guilty to drug and racketeering charges
stemming from incidents at the prison and from a Fayette County-based
drug operation he once directed.

A no-contest plea is the same as a guilty plea for sentencing
purposes.

The pleas ended a day and a half of intense negotiations between state
prosecutors and attorneys for father and daughter. They also ended a
long string of prosecutions that resulted from the fatal beating of
William Michael Lucas on June 6, 1993.

Whethers, already sentenced to life without parole for a federal drug
conviction, is the eighth man convicted in the death of Lucas, the
34-year-old Monessen man whose heart and liver were transplanted into
then-Gov. Robert P. Casey in a life-saving operation.

Prosecutors said Whethers, of McClellandtown, ordered members of his
drug gang to beat up Lucas in the mistaken belief that he had stolen
some cocaine that belonged to Whethers.

Under the plea bargain, Whethers will be sentenced to 15 to 30 years
to be served in a federal prison concurrently with his life sentence.

Whethers, now 42, was arrested for the Lucas murder in 1995 and
avoided going to trial for five years. Except for his court
appearance, he was lodged in the county prison, where state agents
said he continued to run his drug gang with the help of a cell phone
supplied by a guard.

Yesterday, however, defense attorney Timothy Dawson said Rachel
Whethers' arrest in June changed Ronald Whethers' outlook on life.

"He's a compassionate father," Dawson said. "No question about it."

The key to the deals made with the state attorney general's office and
approved by Common Pleas Judge Richard E. McCormick Jr. was the
sentence Rachel Whethers would face.

Ronald Whethers also insisted that his daughter's plea be accepted by
the court before his and that he be allowed to watch to make sure
prosecutors did what they had promised to do.

Rachel Whethers pleaded guilty to two drug-related charges and the
state dropped all others against the 21-year-old. Her ultimate
sentence will be determined by McCormick.

In the formal plea bargain, prosecutors said they would not seek any
sentence for Rachel Whethers that would require her to spend time in a
state prison. That would mean a sentence of two years or less that
could be served in the county prison.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys refused to say whether Rachel
Whethers would cooperate in the ongoing investigation of the county
prison, or if that cooperation would affect her sentence.

Jerome Tierney, Rachel Whethers' attorney, said he hoped she would not
have to serve any prison time.

No sentencing dates were set.

Deputy Attorney General Scott Robinette said the deal approved
yesterday by Ronald Whethers was identical to one that hit a snag over
language the day before.

"It's appropriate that Ronald Whethers, who ran a drug organization,
take legal responsibility for the murder of Michael Lucas," Robinette
said.

State agents raided the Westmoreland County Prison on June 22 and
arrested Whethers, his daughter, corrections Officer Anthony Shawley
and four others accused of being part of a scheme to sell cocaine,
heroin and marijuana to undercover officers.

The focus of the investigation has widened to include other aspects of
life at the county lockup, and a number of witnesses have been called
to testify in front of a grand jury sitting in Harrisburg.