ADMITTED ADDICT GETS EIGHT YEARS FOR DRUG DEALING

An admitted drug addict and former informant for state narcotics officers
was found guilty Wednesday of dealing drugs.

A jury sentenced Tracy Byrd, 30, of Lubbock to eight years in prison and
assessed a $2,000 fine. The jury heard a day's worth of testimony Tuesday
and returned a conviction and sentence Wednesday.

Byrd was charged with delivery of a controlled substance for giving just
over six grams of methamphetamine to an undercover police officer in
November 1999.

"That's a good sentence and sends the message that you don't need to be
dealing narcotics here in Lubbock County," prosecutor George Leal said.

Byrd faced between five years and life in prison and a maximum fine of
$10,000 for the first-degree felony charge. He was eligible for probation.

Byrd admitted Tuesday that he is a drug addict but denied being a drug
dealer. He testified that he obtained meth for the officer, who he believed
to be a cocaine dealer, as a favor in order to get a better price on drugs.

"When I'm on drugs, all I want is drugs, all I need is drugs," he said.
"And anything I can do to get drugs, I will do."

Byrd said that in an effort to get clean, he offered to work with
Department of Public Safety narcotics investigators. Byrd was a paid
informant for the DPS for several months in 1999, Lt. John Waites said.

Waites said information that Byrd provided while working as an informant
made him think Byrd was a drug dealer. Byrd knew about a high-level Lubbock
cocaine dealer who now is in federal prison.

"If he were just a low-level user or a user and not a seller, my experience
is, he would not have known heavy movers of dope," Waites said.