EX-ROBESON DEPUTY DECRIES TREATMENT INEQUITY

Former Robeson County deputy Vincent Sinclair has been ordered to
surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons by 5 p.m. today.

Sinclair said he was blind-sided Monday. He said he thought he was
going to U.S. District Court in Raleigh for a routine hearing.
Instead, he pleaded guilty and was told to report to prison today.

Sinclair, who has not been sentenced, said he is being treated
unfairly. He is the only one of 11 deputies who have pleaded guilty in
Operation Tarnished Badge to go to prison.

Sinclair said he has been told that the others will be imprisoned
after they are sentenced within 30 to 90 days. Sinclair was told to
report today to the nearest U.S. Marshals office, where he will be
taken to prison and await sentencing.

Sinclair said he doesn't understand why he is being singled out,
especially after providing investigators with information crucial to
their case. "I just don't understand why it's harder on me than
everyone else," he said. Sinclair said he needs the extra time to get
his affairs in order. "Why can't I work and take care of my family
until it's my time to go to jail?" said Sinclair, who has three
children and now drives a tractor-trailer.

Operation Tarnished Badge is a four-year investigation into corruption
in the Robeson County Sheriff's Office. Sinclair was one of the first
deputies to be arrested, in May 2005.

Sinclair expressed remorse for his crimes. He pleaded guilty Monday to
kidnapping two men in Virginia in 2004 and to kidnapping and robbing a
Robeson County man of cocaine and $150,000. He faces a maximum of two
life prison sentences, but his cooperation is expected to lead to a
lesser sentence. "I don't feel nothing but hurt," he said. "I would
have been better off not even coming back to the Red Springs area, and
I'd have been better off if I had never gotten into law enforcement.''
In all, Sinclair said, he was involved in four separate crimes, but he
said he never led any of them.

"I know the difference between right and wrong," he said. "I just got
caught up with the wrong people." Sinclair said he started getting
into trouble after another former deputy - Patrick Ferguson - gave him
$3,000. Ferguson has also pleaded guilty to kidnapping the men in
Virginia. He could not be reached for comment. Sinclair said he used
the money to stop a foreclosure on his house. Afterward, he said, he
got enticed into committing crimes to help provide for his family.

"I have never been in trouble in my life," Sinclair said. "I have lost
every single thing I have ever had, including family." In the Virginia
kidnapping, Sinclair, Ferguson and four other men are accused of
holding up two men at a gas station and driving them to Selma, N.C.,
where the men escaped.

Court documents say Sinclair and the others thought the men had
$450,000 concealed in their van. One of the men was shot in the leg.
In 2003, prosecutors say, Sinclair, Ferguson and others waited for a
drug dealer to leave a card game, then duct taped the man's mouth,
took him into the woods and beat him.

Afterward, Sinclair called the man's girlfriend and had her drop off 2
kilograms of cocaine and $150,000 at a predetermined location,
according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Sinclair then split the money
with Ferguson and the others.

In 2004, prosecutors say, Sinclair burned a man with lighter fluid,
thinking he was a drug dealer.

Although Sinclair acknowledges that he was present during that crime,
he said he did not pour the lighter fluid or injure the man. He also
downplays his role in the other crimes.

"I'm not the leader of nothing," he said. "I might have been there,
but it's more than me and I'm getting the worst end of it." Sinclair
is not the only former deputy to be incarcerated as a result of
Operation Tarnished Badge. On Tuesday, a federal judge revoked a
presentence release for Steven Lovin after learning that Lovin had
been contacting potential witnesses in the case.