FORMER PORTSMOUTH POLICEMAN SENT TO PRISON

NORFOLK -- A former Portsmouth police officer who went from defending the
law to breaking it was sentenced Thursday to more than 10 years in prison
for drug conspiracy and assault convictions.

Douglas Emanuel Foreman, 46, a police officer in the 1980s, was sentenced
to 123 months in prison. He was convicted last month by a jury in U.S.
District Court.

The jury found him guilty of six felonies, including drug distribution,
weapon possession and assaulting a witness.

Foreman was arrested Feb. 9 after police seized cocaine from his Chesapeake
home. Police also found two loaded semiautomatic firearms with two
high-capacity ammunition magazines, according to evidence presented during
his trial.

A month after his arrest, he assaulted a government witness with a ratchet
wrench, federal agents said. The victim suffered gashes to his head that
required stitches and staples to close.

Foreman served as a Portsmouth patrol officer from July 11, 1983, to April
27, 1984. Portsmouth police declined to say why Foreman's employment ended,
but he has a string of drug convictions from 1985 to the present.