Teen Charged In Connection With Operation Babyface

STUDENT SAYS DAD, STEPMOM GAVE HER LSD

The two relatives were indicted Friday after the teen, who used to attend
Northside High, told police that they encouraged her to sell the drug.

The father and step mother of a teen-ager caught selling drugs at Northside
High School last year have been accused of supplying her LSD and
encouraging her to sell it to her friends, authorities said.

A Roanoke County grand jury on Friday indicted John Henry Davis, 45, and
Laurie Hicks-Davis, 34, on three felony counts each of distributing LSD,
conspiring to distribute LSD and possessing LSD with the intent to
distribute. The indictments are the result of their 17-year-old daughter
going to police last fall and telling of drugs being in her home.

"They'd give it to me, encourage me - they said, 'There's nothing wrong
with it,'" the girl told (http://www.theroanoketimes.com)The Roanoke Times.

The teen's confession to police came just before she was charged in
connection with Operation Babyface, during which an undercover officer
spent 10 months posing as a student at Northside. The teen, who is not
being named by (http://www.theroanoketimes.com)The Roanoke Times because
she is a juvenile, was among nine students charged with selling drugs to
Officer K.L. Moulton.

While attending the high school, Moulton considered the girl a friend and
had been told of her parents' alleged involvement with drugs. But police
were unable to pursue charges against the two adults until the teen came
forward with information, said Sgt. Chuck Mason, who supervises the Roanoke
County Police Department's vice unit.

"She came in totally on her own, completely unsolicited," Mason said. "She
had no knowledge she was about to be charged."

Hours after the 17-year-old went to police on Sept. 6, detectives searched
the Davises' Catawba Valley Drive home. According to the search warrant,
the girl claimed that her father and step mother obtained a large quantity
of LSD in January 2000 and packaged it into plastic bags for distribution.

The girl also claimed that her step mother urged her to sell the drugs at
her high school, according to the warrant. She told police she bought LSD
from her step mother and sold a portion to two other juveniles, keeping the
balance for herself, according to the warrant.

When detectives searched the home, they found 23 hits of LSD and various
drug paraphernalia, according to the warrant. The LSD was in a coffee mug
and on individually wrapped sugar cubes wrapped in tin foil - all of which
was found in the kitchen freezer, the warrant said.

The five hits of LSD the 17-year-old sold to Moulton were on a sheet of
paper the teen passed to the undercover cop in sociology class, according
to court testimony. The teen later pleaded no contest to distribution
charges and is scheduled to be sentenced in June.

In a telephone interview Friday from her mother's home in Georgia, where
she now lives, the teen said she went to the police in September with the
goal of getting out of her father's house.

"I was so tired of living that life," the teen said Friday.

When she went to police, she confessed to using LSD, according to the
search warrant. She later confessed to selling it, but she says she stopped
selling it after her encounter with Moulton and began backing off drugs.

She flushed her supply of LSD down the toilet in July, she said. She's been
clean since last fall, her lawyer said in court last month. And since she's
been living with her mother and step father, she's been on the honor roll,
has a new group of friends and is expected to graduate from high school in
June.

At what was supposed to be her sentencing hearing March 22, Juvenile and
Domestic Relations Court Judge Philip Trompeter told the teen he was proud
of her. He delayed sentencing until June, however, because Georgia
authorities had not properly prepared a social history report.

Last month, the teen said she was glad she got caught "because I didn't
need to be doing it, anyway."

John and Laurie Davis, whom the teen says she thinks are no longer
together, could not be reached for comment Friday evening. And although
indicted, they have not yet been arrested and their cases have not yet been
set for trial.

The Davises are the last people to be charged in Operation Babyface, Mason
said.