'GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT,' ROMANOWSKIS SAY

"Guilty until proven innocent" is how Bill and Julie Romanowski say
they were treated after their arrests on charges of illegally
obtaining the diet drug Phentermine.

"Probably the number one thing we've learned is who our real friends
are," the Denver Broncos linebacker said in an interview aired Sunday
night by News4.

The interview was taped last week at the family's vacation home in
Honolulu. Romanowski is now at Broncos pre-season camp in Greeley.

Romanowski was acquitted of felony drug charges in June, and
prosecutors dropped all nine felony drug charges against Julie
Romanowski this month.

She was scheduled to stand trial Aug. 14 in Douglas County District
Court on charges of obtaining Phentermine for her husband eight times
from Sept. 7, 1998, to Aug. 21, 1999.

"Conspiracy, fraud, deceit. All these horrible words that were
attached to a prescription," Julie Romanowski said during the
interview. "A medication. Period."

Julie recalled going out to dinner with her husband one night after
the arrests. The couple sitting next to them asked to be moved to
another table, she said.

"They didn't want to sit next to that despicable Romanowski and his
wife," she recalled. "We were guilty until proven innocent."

Julie said she has sheltered her children from the events and that
"they don't know anything" about it.

Bill Romanowski said the experience was "one of the most intense
situations I've ever been in in my life."

Phentermine is strictly an appetite suppressant, not a performance
enhancer, he said.

"To take something in the morning to suppress my appetite is one
thing," Romanowski said. "The prosecution tried to compare it to a
lot of stronger drugs."

Romanowski said he's not sure what he'd say if he ran into Dr.
Randall Snook, who was accused of being part of a prescription scheme
with Julie Romanowski and two family friends. Snook was sentenced to
18 months probation.

"I did see him at the trial, and I didn't know what to say. How did
this happen? Why did this happen?" Bill Romanowski said.

Sitting next to her husband on a couch as waves crashed outside the
seaside home, Julie added, "It was a diet pill. A diet pill. Nothing
more."