INDICTMENT OF SHERIFF, 12 OFFICERS JUST LATEST HIT FOR VIRGINIA COUNTY

The drug-related indictments of the Henry County sheriff and his
officers are the talk of the town in this rural Virginia county, but
residents are more concerned about their community's image than the
case itself.

"People are talking it up," said Chris Shuler, a beer truck driver
from Horsepasture. "It just makes it harder for the county to move on."

For several years now, there has been no chance to move on as one
blow after another has hit this county of 56,000 residents in the
Blue Ridge foothills along the North Carolina line.

The area was once a textile and furniture hub, but manufacturers
pulled out in the 1990s and left behind economic despair with
double-digit unemployment that lasted from 2002 to 2005.

At the same time, a former county administrator went to prison for
embezzling more than $818,000. In September, a mortgage lender filed
a lawsuit in Indiana contending that numerous residents of Henry
County and the adjacent city of Martinsville had been victims of a
massive fraud scheme.

"Unfortunately in this community, we're very resilient and we get a
lot of opportunity to prove it," Deputy County Administrator Tim Hall said.

The federal indictments unsealed in Roanoke on Nov. 2 alleged Sheriff
H. Franklin Cassell and 12 of his current and former officers, as
well as seven other people, were involved in a scheme to sell drugs
seized in criminal investigations. Other evidence such as guns and
electronic equipment also was stolen, prosecutors said.

"It's kind of put a damper on this town," said Henry Carter, a county
resident. "If you can't have people in there you can trust, what are
you going to do?"

Cassell, 68, who had a career with the Virginia State Police before
becoming sheriff 14 years ago, was charged with interfering with
federal agents' investigation and with money laundering.

Florence Draper, whose well-kept brick rancher sits next door to
Cassell's in the Irisburg neighborhood, was surprised by the
indictments. "They're great neighbors," she said of Cassell and his
wife, Margaret.

Draper, a retired schoolteacher, said that some 15 years ago she and
her husband sold the Cassells the five-acre tract where they built their house.

A federal SWAT team arrested Cassell at home. He was released on
$25,000 bond but did not return to the department, and on Wednesday
said he would take an unpaid leave until the case is resolved.

Six of the current officers indicted have been placed on
administrative leave, and the seventh was fired. In releasing them, a
federal magistrate judge had ordered the department officers not to
work in law enforcement.

Since 1998, prosecutors said, cocaine, steroids, marijuana and other
drugs that had been seized by the sheriff's department were resold to
the public. The ring distributed drugs from a house owned by a
sergeant who agreed to cooperate with investigators, authorities said.

County residents to a man expressed surprise at the charges. Shuler,
making a delivery to the Old Country Store in Horsepasture, said he
knew two of the deputies indicted.

"It'll make a bad impression," said Buddy Arden of Horsepasture. "We
don't need that."

Donnie Davis of Ridgeway said he now has to go to Eden, N.C., to work
as a textile mechanic and worried that the indictments will make it
even harder for the county's economy to recover. "People are going to
know one thing about Henry County," he said.