ILLEGAL DRUGS PERVADING NEARLY ALL OF CHESAPEAKE

Richard W. Taylor, a Businessman In Chesapeake, Is Serving a Five-Year
Sentence For Drugs.

CHESAPEAKE - To Richard W. Taylor, it seemed inconceivable, as if the past
year had been a dream.

But it was all true.

The 46-year-old, middle-class white man was in the Chesapeake City Jail
earlier this year, trying to explain how he had become a "crack head," a
street term for a drug addict. He said he figured it wasn't supposed to
happen to people like him.

"I had nice clothes, had cars, had my own business," he said. "I had cash
and lived in a house on the water. . I lived in an upscale, all-white
neighborhood."

Taylor not only used crack cocaine, but sold illegal drugs from his Western
Branch home. Today, he is serving a five-year prison sentence.

Taylor's neighborhood is far from poor or dangerous, as many people might
picture.

The family home, where he lived with his mother and brother, sits on the
banks of the Elizabeth River in a quiet community of $200,000 to $350,000
properties.

Horses roam the fields of a ranch down the road. Across the river, golfers
work the fairway.

Law-enforcement officials say Taylor's case and many others like it show
that Chesapeake has a wide-reaching drug problem.

"It's no longer confined to any group," said police Chief Richard Justice.
"I guess most people would picture low-income, mostly densely populated
areas, but that's not the case."

Justice, who has been on the force for 38 years, said that as the city has
grown, he has seen the drug problem reach into more neighborhoods. South
Norfolk accounts for the most arrests, but the illegal drug trade touches
nearly every part of Chesapeake.

The majority of arrests for speed or methamphetamine last year occurred in
Great Bridge, police said. Deep Creek had the city's highest percentage of
heroin arrests. Western Branch accounted for the majority of LSD and
Ecstasy arrests.

Taylor's case was one of 166 last year from the Western Branch area, police
said.

Before drug addiction wrecked his life, Taylor ran a home-improvement
business for 24 years, employing two or three people.

When police arrested him in May 2003, they allegedly found an array of
drugs, including valium, vicodin, ultram, amoxicillin, methocarbamol,
flexeril, trazodone, celexa, zoloft, marijuana, morphine, methadone,
oxycontin, heroin and cocaine. He faced 21 separate drug charges.

"In essence, it was like a pharmacy over where he was," Assistant
Commonwealth's Attorney Heather Shelton told a judge during Taylor's
sentencing in January. "He's got people coming in and out of his house. .
Those are serious drugs he was dealing, in terms of the heroin and cocaine."

When Taylor was sentenced, he blamed himself for his downward spiral. But
he also said he was an ideal target for drug dealers.

"They prey on the people in the best neighborhoods because they know they
have more money to spend," he said.

Taylor was hardly unique, according to law enforcement and court records.

While he was selling illegal drugs in Western Branch, Karl E. Moore Sr., a
former church pastor, was heading a multimillion-dollar cocaine and heroin
operation from his home in the middle-class Deep Creek community of Marsh
Creek.

Around the same time, police said, Larry Agnor was running a
methamphetamine laboratory at his rural southern Chesapeake home in the
1100 block of West Road.

In Greenbrier's business district, Darrell Bell and Kevin Key were said to
have been setting up shop in an extended-stay hotel suite, where police
said they were trafficking in pounds of marijuana.

On a smaller scale, Michael Corso allegedly was creating a noticeable
amount of traffic from his townhouse in the Los Gaviotas community in Great
Bridge, where police said he sold marijuana and cocaine.

Agnor, Bell, Key and Corso were arrested in 2003 on drug charges. They are
awaiting prosecution. Moore has been sentenced to life in prison.

When police and federal agents weren't conducting raids or surveillance to
snare suspects, they were intercepting packages of drugs heading into the city.

One such package contained more than 2,000 steroid pills shipped from
Pudong Xingqu, China. It was intercepted last year before reaching its
destination: a $250,000 home on St. Brides Road East.

In another case, federal agents broke up a nationwide drug ring and seized
more than two tons of marijuana, including 439 pounds in two Chesapeake
storage units.

The drug cases are a sampling of activity throughout Chesapeake in the past
year.

Federal indictments, local search warrants, police information and court
records show that very few neighborhoods are immune.

"I can't think of one that I would feel comfortable saying was drug-free,"
said Chesapeake police Capt. Robert Downing of the criminal investigations
section.

Drug arrests in Chesapeake have declined slightly. The more than 1,400
arrests last year represent a decline of some 200 cases from 2002, police said.

That's not the case in every Hampton Roads city.

In Virginia Beach, for example, certain types of drug arrests have declined
while others have increased, said Lt. Neil Thompson of Special Investigations.

Virgina Beach has seen a drastic decrease in heroin-possession arrests,
down 66 percent, Thompson said. Cocaine possession arrests, however, have
risen 46 percent, and marijuana possession arrests are up 27 percent from
2003 to 2004.

As for illegal use of drugs, "that's widespread," Thompson said.

The same is true in Chesapeake, police said.

The city's size and rapid growth, they said, make it difficult to cover.
Federal agents have taken the lead on some of Chesapeake's bigger drug
investigations, including the case against Moore.

In the late 1990s, Moore and his family settled in Chesapeake's Marsh Creek
community. Using the Chesapeake home as his base, the former Arizona church
pastor amassed millions trafficking in heroin and cocaine.

Federal prosecutors estimate that he built up $23 million in assets before
his arrest.

"The evidence will show he was the patriarch of a family that amassed great
wealth. He lived in a $300,000 house in Chesapeake, drove luxury cars -
Mercedes, Cadillacs and Jaguars - yet he paid no taxes," prosecutors told
jurors during Moore's trial last year.

Moore's cocaine, went to Chesapeake customers, federal authorities said.
For every million-dollar operation in Chesapeake, there are dozens of small
traffickers and many more affluent drug users in the city, according to
court records and counselors.

"Sometimes it's surprising," said the Rev. Paul Hardy, who heads a
faith-based 12-step program in Chesapeake for addicts. "Our people don't
look like destitute street bums. Our people are high-functioning."

The people Hardy sees are between the ages of 20 and 50, black and white,
rich and poor. Many are referred by the courts and probation office.

"Many of the people we see are previously successful business people who
have gotten into crack cocaine. . Many have made a lot of money and lost
it. We have had a couple who were millionaires and have lost everything, "
Hardy said.

Taylor, the Western Branch businessman, said he lost everything when police
seized his earnings as drug money. His business was ruined.

"Twenty-four years down the drain," he said.

Of the 21 charges against him, 12 were withdrawn in either General District
or Circuit Court.

During his sentencing hearing, Taylor and his family pleaded for leniency.

He was sentenced by Judge Frederick H. Creekmore to 35 years in prison on
the remaining charges of trafficking in heroin, cocaine, oxycotin and
methamphetamines and possession of a firearm with drugs. However, Creekmore
suspended 30 years of Taylor's sentence, ordering him to serve a mandatory
five-term term for the gun charge.

"This drug thing has basically run rampant, " Taylor said before being sent
to prison. "I would say it's pretty much everywhere."