EX-DEPUTY TO PLEAD GUILTY IN FRAME-UP

TAMPA - The deputy had faced charges of conspiracy, civil rights
violations and cocaine offenses.

An ongoing federal investigation into dirty dealings within the
Manatee County Sheriff's Office has resulted in a fifth plea deal,
this one involving a deputy who planted cocaine and committed perjury.

Lance D. Carpenter, 37, of Sun City Center has admitted that he put a
rock of crack cocaine in a Bradenton man's car and then pretended to
discover it during a search. He has since left the force.

Carpenter's agreement with the U.S. attorney's office, made public
Wednesday, says the man was framed because he had accused Carpenter's
squad members of stealing $9,000 from his hotel room in February 1998.

Carpenter is the fifth Manatee sheriff's deputy to plead guilty to
civil rights offenses stemming from activity within an elite
anticocaine unit called the Delta Squad. The probe is being conducted
by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Del Fuoco, the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement and the FBI.

The plea agreement also states that Carpenter helped other officers
cover up illegal conduct by writing false reports and by lying under
oath in the trial of a Bradenton woman wrongly convicted of cocaine
charges.

The woman was sentenced to a year of probation and lost custody of her
child.

A Manatee County judge recently overturned the conviction, finding
that Carpenter and others fabricated the evidence.

Although Carpenter said he was unaware that fellow officers had
planted the cocaine in that case, he has told prosecutors he knew
`'something was not quite right,'' the plea agreement states.

Carpenter was charged with conspiracy, one count of civil rights
violations and two counts of possession with intent to distribute
crack cocaine. The charges carry maximum penalties totaling 51 years
in prison and fines exceeding $2.3 million, but prosecutors have
agreed to seek a less severe sentence.

A date for Carpenter's plea had not been set Wednesday.

The other four former deputies involved - Christopher L. Moore, Paul
Maass, Wayne V. Wyckoff and Thomas C. Wooten - are awaiting
sentencing.