VA. HIGH COURT ORDERS NEW TRIAL FOR AGENT WHO SHOT MAN

The Virginia Supreme Court announced yesterday that it has overturned
the manslaughter conviction of a federal agent who fatally shot a man
in a fight outside a Roanoke restaurant.

The Supreme Court ordered a new trial.

The high court ruled that evidence the state discovered after the
trial should have been given to Timothy Workman's attorney before
sentencing. Workman, an agent with the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration in Texas, was sentenced to five years in prison but has
been out on bond pending the high court's decision.

Workman's attorney, Tony Anderson, said he has spoken with Workman by
phone and he is elated with the court's decision.

Workman was in Roanoke working on a marijuana case when the Feb. 12,
2002, incident occurred. According to trial testimony, Workman and
Keith Bailey, 41, had been drinking in O'Charley's restaurant that
evening. Outside the restaurant, as Workman sat with a Roanoke woman
in her car, Bailey approached with a friend and asked the woman why
she was with Workman.

A fight ensued and Workman, then 31, pulled his gun and shot Bailey
dead. He claimed that he acted in self-defense because a friend of
Bailey's, James A. Bumbry II, was coming at him with a gun. At trial,
Bumbry denied the accusation.

Originally charged with first-degree murder, Workman was convicted of
voluntary manslaughter. If prosecutors decide to go forward with a new
trial, Workman would face a charge no more severe than that.

According to the Supreme Court's decision to reverse the conviction, a
man had given a detective investigating the case secondhand
information that Bumbry had tried to pass a gun to Bailey during the
fight. That information, the court ruled, should have been disclosed
to Workman's attorney.

Yesterday, Anderson said that since the trial, Workman has worked in
Iraq and Afghanistan as a private contractor.