MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE SERGEANT PLEADS GUILTY TO CORRUPTION CHARGE

Reports U.S. Attorney

BOSTON, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- An eighteen year veteran and Sergeant
with the Massachusetts State Police, pled guilty today to a corruption
charge.

United States Attorney Donald K. Stern; L. Wayne Nicks, Acting Special
Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration; Colonel Reed V. Hillman, Superintendent
of the Massachusetts State Police; Philip A. Rollins, District
Attorney for Barnstable County; Frederick Aufiero, Chief of the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division; and
Steven J. Pirotte, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, announced that RICHARD COREY, JR., age
41, of 88 Fresh Pond Road, in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, pled
guilty today before Chief U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young
to a one count superseding Information charging him with corruption
from 1994 through 1998.

The Information charged COREY with depriving the taxpayers of
Massachusetts and the Massachusetts State Police, of his honest
services over the four year period by accepting cash payments from
Edwin Jones, a/k/a Fast Eddy, a cocaine dealer operating on Cape Cod,
in exchange for providing Jones with confidential and investigative
law enforcement information and other assistance.

U.S. Attorney Stern stated: "Richard Corey was getting paid for
feeding sensitive law enforcement information to a drug dealer. He
will go to federal prison for his crime. But nothing will ever erase
the dishonor he brought to his badge."

At the change of plea hearing today, the government stated that the
information and assistance that COREY provided to Jones included, but
was not limited to, the following:

- -- COREY disclosed and/or confirmed to Jones the identity of
an undercover officer who was negotiating an undercover drug buy from one
of Jones' associates.

- -- COREY disclosed to Jones the identity of an individual who
was providing information about Jones' illegal activities to law
enforcement officers.

- -- COREY disclosed to Jones that a witness, identified by
name, had come into the Massachusetts State Police barracks in Yarmouth,
Massachusetts to report that Jones had threatened that witness and
that Jones was engaged in illegal narcotics activity.

- -- COREY informed Jones that a license plate provided by
Jones belonged to an undercover surveillance vehicle. Jones told COREY that
he wanted the license plate information because he believed that the
car bearing that license plate surveilled him after he left the
COREY's residence.

- -- throughout the period in which COREY devised and executed
this scheme to defraud, he passed on to Jones discussions that he heard
about Jones and investigative information he had pertaining to Jones
or Jones' associates. For example, when Jones bailed an associate of
his out of jail, he asked COREY to listen for any talk concerning
Jones at the State Police barracks. Shortly thereafter, the defendant
warned Jones that people at the barracks had, in fact, been talking
about Jones having bailed his associate out and COREY told Jones that
the State Police were unhappy with Jones for doing so.

- -- throughout this period, Jones also sought information
from COREY about State Police speed traps and surveillance positions and
COREY provided Jones with such information.

- -- from in or about 1994 through May 29, 1998, Jones provided
the defendant with cash payments in exchange for the defendant's
disclosure of confidential and investigative law Enforcement
information and other assistance that the defendant provided to Jones.

Chief Judge Young scheduled sentencing for June 29, 1999 at 2 p.m.

COREY faces a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment and a $250, 000
fine.

This case was investigated by the Massachusetts State Police and the
Barnstable District Attorney's office, with the assistance of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The case is being
prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily R. Schulman of Stern's
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, and Alex Whiting of
Stern's Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.