TUNICA DEPUTY GETS 30-YEAR SENTENCE

The former chief deputy of the Tunica County Sheriff's Department was
sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in a federal prison for extorting payoffs
to protect drug dealers.

Willie Lee Starks, known on the streets as 'Cat Daddy' had nothing to say
before U.S. Dist. Judge L.T. Senter, Jr imposed the sentence after telling
Starks he was a " disgrace to Tunica County, the State of Mississippi, and
the United States of America." according to those in the Aberdeen courtroom.

Starks, 48, cut short an Oxford jury trial and pleaded guilty Aug. 4 after
several witnesses testified against him.

The government had intended to introduce audio tapes of Starks'
conversations with confidential informants in which he agreed to stand
watch outside a Tunica hotel while a purported drug transaction went on
inside.

Transcripts of those conversations, laced with profanity, indicate Starks
was initially reluctant to handle the surveillance and said his price for
service would increase if the deal turned violent.

Also at the truncated trial, former sheriff John J. Pickett III testified
he split a payoff with Starks from the wife of a man who wanted to get out
of jail. The man was quickly re-arrested.

Pickett resigned his office, dropped re-election plans and pleaded guilty
March 1 to a single count of extorting payoffs from a bail bondsman.
Government lawyers said they could have proved Pickett took more than
$80,000 in the illegal shakedown scheme. U.S. Dist. Judge Neal B. Biggers
Jr. sentenced him on Sept.3 to 20 months in federal prison.

Starks pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort payoffs and extortion after
calling off the trial in August. Senter imposed 15-year sentences on each
count and said they would run consecutively for a total of 30 years. Starks
will not be eligible for parole. The sentencing brings to an apparent end
a lengthy state-federal investigation into corruption within the Sheriff's
Department that federal authorities code named "Delta Heat. "It
netted three of the department's top officers and a network of drug dealers.