EX-LAWYER SPENT 5 YEARS IN PRISON SEEKS NEW DRUG TRIAL

The Judge Blamed The FBI's Foot-Dragging On Requests For Evidence As The
Reason Why He Freed The Christiansburg Man To Pursue His Appeal

Keith Neely is now fighting for a new trial from outside prison.

The flamboyant former Christiansburg lawyer - who has spent most of the
past five years in prison trying to get a new trial on drug and money
laundering charges - drove with his attorney to his mother's Christiansburg
home Friday night after a federal judge ordered him freed on bond.

"I couldn't do it from inside," the 50-year-old Neely said on his
attorney's car phone. "Now I have a chance to show what I've been alleging
now for five years, or actually 10. That's what I feel good about now."

Being "behind the fence" in Beckley, W.Va., made it hard for Neely to work
on his case for a new trial, despite his legal background, he said.

"At a prison camp, you don't have a lot of legal material," he said. His
phone calls were monitored, and he had to file repeated requests for legal
materials.

Neely's efforts to get documents pertaining to his case were what led to
his release on $25,000 bond Friday on the order of Senior U.S. District
Judge Jackson Kiser. U.S. Attorney Ruth Plagenhoef filed an emergency
motion for a stay to appeal Kiser's order Friday; Kiser denied the motion.

Kiser's ruling emphasized his dissatisfaction with how the FBI handled
Neely's requests for files in the case, which has wended its way through
federal court for 10 years.

The FBI had a court mandate to turn over documents, Kiser wrote in his
order. "At nearly every juncture, however, the FBI has impeded rapid and
efficient resolution of these matters by creating delay."

"It seems that an institutional inertia infects the FBI and keeps it from
responding to document requests in a timely fashion," Kiser continued.
"Indeed, even under Court orders to meet a deadline, it cannot do so."

At a May 19 hearing, Kiser drew a parallel between the Neely case and that
of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who has asked for a stay of
execution after it was discovered that the FBI had failed to turn over
4,000 pages of documents to defense attorneys.

FBI attorney Sean O'Neill's explanation of the 200 pages the agency
produced the day of the hearing had a "very familiar ring to it," Kiser
said. He compared it to FBI Director Louis Freeh's testimony before Congress.

Neely later said, "If the government can't do what they're supposed to do
in a case like that, of course they're not going to do what they're
supposed to in a case like mine."

Plagenhoef did not deny that a comparison could be made between the cases.

"I think that in both cases, certainly on a smaller scale in the Neely
case, it certainly demonstrates that there's a government bureaucracy
that's fairly ponderous," Plagenhoef said. But she added that the
government had never been sanctioned in Neely's case for not turning over
files.

Neely has sought access to his FBI files several times over the years. In
1997, Neely filed a lawsuit alleging that the FBI was withholding files he
had requested in 1996 under the Freedom of Information Act.

Then in 1998, Neely filed a motion seeking a new trial, based partly on the
recantation of testimony by a government witness, Michael Giacolone.

Although Neely was seeking new evidence from the FBI under both
proceedings, they are separate legal actions.

In January 1999, Kiser ruled in the FOIA case that the FBI's reasons for
holding back materials weren't good enough. The federal government appealed
that ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In March 2000, a
three-judge panel ruled that the FBI was entitled to hold back parts of
Neely's file and returned the case to Kiser's court.

The FOIA lawsuit ended last November when Kiser ruled that the FBI had
given Neely everything he was entitled to receive under the Freedom of
Information Act. That law is subject to provisions designed to protect the
privacy of other people mentioned in the case files.

Neely's quest for a new trial began to heat up with new information he got
from the FBI documents he received. On March 15, under Neely's motion
seeking a new trial, Kiser ordered the FBI to give Neely everything in his
case file by April 27. Rules governing access to files by a person seeking
a new trial are less restrictive than those for the Freedom of Information Act.

He also wrote that there was evidence of government misconduct, though he
later entered a revised opinion in which that part was deleted.

Plagenhoef argues that the government should not get all the blame for the
delay in the case, citing Neely's numerous motions and the 14 months the
case was on appeal with the 4th Circuit. She added that Neely had access to
more of his files than most people do.

"It was a long, slow process because the FBI has a right not to turn
everything over," she said of the materials Neely was seeking under the
Freedom of Information Act.

In the motion for a new trial, staffers were scrambling to photocopy 2,000
pages of documents by April 27, Plagenhoef said, but were unable to make
the deadline.

Plagenhoef said she was looking forward to having an evidentiary hearing,
at which both sides would argue whether there is evidence to merit a new trial.

Meanwhile, Neely must remain at his mother's home in Christiansburg and may
travel only to the law library or office of his attorney, Max Jenkins, and
only on weekdays.

His mother, June Neely, was in Richmond for the weekend and did not yet
know her son had been released, he said.

"She'll have a great big surprise for her when she comes home," Neely said.