APPEALS COURT RULES SENTENCE FOR EX-TIVERTON DETECTIVE TOO HARSH

BOSTON -- A federal appeals court ruled today that a veteran Rhode Island
police officer received too harsh a sentence for acting as a lookout for a
cocaine and marijuana ring.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that former Detective Sgt.
William Sedoma of Tiverton should have at least 58 months taken off his
sentence of 24 years and five months.

The court found that the lower court judge who sentenced Sedoma made errors
in applying federal sentencing guidelines.

"When a defendant's sentence is increased by almost five years as a result
of a plain error in applying the Sentencing Guidelines, it would adversely
affect the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial
proceedings to ignore that error," the court ruled in a 20-page opinion
written by Justice Kermit Lipez. "Hence, we conclude that Sedoma's sentence
constitutes plain error that must be redressed."

The appeals court sent the case back to the federal district court for
re-sentencing.

An 18-year police veteran, Sedoma was convicted in February 2001 of 13
charges, including mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. He was acquitted
of six other counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, extortion and bribery.

A year later, Judge Robert E. Keeton imposed the sentence -- the maximum
allowed under federal sentencing guidelines -- in U.S. District Court,
calling Sedoma's actions an "egregious breach of trust."

Sedoma acted as a lookout for a cocaine and marijuana distribution ring
that operated in Fall River and Tiverton, alerting drug dealers when their
packages were intercepted by police.

Prosecutors also said Sedoma warned members of the ring when an undercover
Massachusetts police officer was trying to infiltrate the organization.

For every pound of marijuana that was brought into Tiverton, Sedoma
allegedly received $25.

"I'm happy and pleased that the court saw it the way I did, but in the
great scheme of things, this is a small adjustment to a long sentence,"
said Sedoma's lawyer, Robert Sheketoff.

Sheketoff said he had a quarrel, not with the sentencing judge, but with
the guidelines themselves.

"We have the highest percentage of our population in prison than any other
country in the world. And this may be a solution that's no solution at
all," he said.