3 FORMER ROBESON DEPUTIES INDICTED

Charges Include Arson, Racketeering

Three former deputies with the Robeson County Sheriff's Office were arrested
Friday as part of a federal investigation into the theft of thousands of
dollars during traffic stops, the delivery of drugs to office informants and
the arson of two homes and a business.

Steven Ray Lovin, 36, Charles Thomas "C.T." Strickland, 39, and Roger
Hugh Taylor, 36, were named in the federal indictment on arson and
racketeering charges unsealed Friday. The arrests came after a
three-and-a-half-year investigation by agents with the Internal
Revenue Service and State Bureau of Investigation into corruption in
the Sheriff's Office, said Frank Whitney, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of North Carolina. "Nothing jeopardizes our personal
safety or undermines the enforcement of the law more than illegal
conduct of sworn law enforcement officers," Whitney said in a news
release.

Friday's indictments add to the already tarnished image of the
Sheriff's Office. A detective was arrested last year and accused of
participating in two fake drug raids.

Robeson County is 90 miles southwest of Raleigh. Sheriff Kenneth
Sealey, who was appointed sheriff in December 2005, did not respond to
requests for comment Friday night. Family members who answered the
phones at Strickland's and Taylor's homes declined to comment. The
29-page indictment unsealed Friday, two days after it was handed down
by a federal grand jury, includes accusations that the three former
deputies profited from their endeavors and set fire to or arranged for
the arson of two homes and a business "to promote a climate of fear in
the community." Lovin, Strickland and Taylor face charges of
racketeering and racketeering conspiracy under the federal Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Lovin faces additional
charges of theft from programs that receive federal funds in
connection with the seizure of money during highway traffic stops,
according to the indictment. The racketeering charges carry a maximum
punishment of life in prison.

Taylor, once a lieutenant with the Sheriff's Office, already is facing
2003 state felony charges of obstructing justice. The charges stem
from an investigation into how an undercover informant who was a
convicted felon was allowed to carry a gun during a police raid,
according to court records and news archives.

Strickland headed the office's drug enforcement division until his
resignation after a Superior Court judge learned in 2002 the
lieutenant falsified information to obtain a search warrant. Lovin and
two other unindicted deputies resigned last year from the office's
drug division, The Associated Press reported.

No trial dates have been set.