EX-INFORMANT SAYS 36 YEARS FOR 2 STOLEN LAWN TRACTORS IS TOO MUCH

'A con, a liar and a thief' seeks retrial

Career criminal Michael Fulcher has often avoided convictions because he
worked as an informant for everyone from the CIA and DEA to the local police.

Getting into trouble has always come easy to Michael Fulcher. But his real
talent is for getting out of it.

Fulcher, 40, has been charged with more than 50 felonies over the years,
court records show, and he walked away from most of them without a
conviction. The few that did stick, however, came with a stiff penalty.

Today in Bedford County Circuit Court, Fulcher hopes to wipe out the bulk of
his prison time.

The former undercover government operative and career criminal is serving 48
years in prison for a variety of crimes in a variety of jurisdictions. But
most of that time -- 36 years -- is for stealing two lawn tractors and a
mower attachment in Bedford County in 1990 and '91.

If Fulcher's attorney can prove there was jury tampering in the Bedford case
- -- and the jury foreman has sworn that there was -- Fulcher will get a new
trial. A two-day hearing on Fulcher's claims begins today.

Fulcher says he began working as an informant for Roanoke County police when
he was 15. Meanwhile, he kept up his criminal career, while feeding
information secretly to local and federal law officials.

The Roanoke Times was able to confirm through court records and interviews
that Fulcher has worked as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, as well as every Roanoke Valley and Franklin County police agency.
He says in addition to that, he's worked for the CIA, FBI and U.S. Customs.
With a pilot's license and an alias supplied by the DEA, Fulcher flew drug
missions in the Caribbean.

The charges against him over the years range from rape and arson to
receiving stolen property and breaking and entering. The rape charge, along
with a number of others, was expunged, according to local authorities. Most
of the others were ultimately dismissed as well, but Fulcher denies that any
of the law enforcers he worked with made the charges go away. The nine
felonies he has been found guilty of were nonviolent offenses, such as
marijuana possession and theft-related charges.

Although he was well known in law enforcement circles, Fulcher's history as
a police informant and undercover pilot for the DEA didn't become public
until Earl Bramblett's murder trial last year in Roanoke County.

Bramblett was found guilty of killing Fulcher's half-sister, Teresa Hodges,
and her family in Vinton in 1994. Bramblett's defense team suggested to
jurors the Hodges family was killed as payback for Fulcher's informing.
Court records and interviews with law enforcement officials indicate that
Fulcher has helped in the arrest of at least dozens of suspects. Fulcher
claims to have put more than 500 drug dealers behind bars.

Despite his work for police and the DEA, by the late 1980s many officials
began to view Fulcher as a con artist who couldn't be trusted, and at least
three prosecutors dropped him as an informant -- in Roanoke, Roanoke County
and the U.S. Attorney for Western Virginia.

In the Bedford case, Fulcher claims that a sheriff's deputy working in the
courtroom poisoned the jury against him.

The jury foreman, Donald Wilkerson, signed an affidavit in 1996 stating that
the jury originally came up with a shorter sentence on the three grand
larceny charges, but that the bailiff outside the jury room, Ronnie
Laughlin, then told him "that our punishment was not enough and that we
needed to give him more time."

Wilkerson's affidavit continues: "We deliberated a little bit longer and
came up with the sentence we recommended. Mr. Laughlin accepted this sentence."

Laughlin, who has retired from the Bedford County Sheriff's Office, denies
that he discussed the jurors' sentencing recommendation with them, saying
that would be "one of the most stupid things you could do."

After signing the affidavit, the jury foreman was contacted by state police
and the press about it. He told The Roanoke Times last fall that he has been
haunted by the fact that he signed the affidavit and that he doesn't
remember the discussion with Laughlin.

Wilkerson said if he has to go into court to testify about it, "I'm going to
plead insanity."

Wilkerson and the rest of the jury convicted Fulcher of going to the same
lawn tractor dealer, Powers Tractor & Equipment Co., three times and
stealing two tractors and a mower deck. One tractor was found at his
parents; he sold the other to a friend, and he traded the deck to another
dealer for one that would fit on his parents' stolen mower.

Then-Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Updike called Fulcher "a con, a liar and a
thief."

"What this case needs is to convict this man right quick of three counts of
grand larceny and send him to the penitentiary as long as you can, because
he's a professional thief," Updike told the jury.

Because Updike is now the Bedford County circuit judge, Fulcher's hearing
this week is being heard by retired Pulaski Circuit Judge Dow Owens.

Fulcher's theory of the crimes for which he was convicted is that they were
committed by a friend of his. Fulcher and his parents simply bought the
stolen items, they say. When police raided the Roanoke County home of
Fulcher's parents in 1991, they found a cache of stolen property that
resulted in his current 48-year prison sentences. The friend was not charged.

"I've always said I bought the mowers [knowing they were stolen], and I
should pay for it," Fulcher said. "But 36 years?"

A fast talker with a ready answer for every question, Fulcher says he had to
buy stolen goods to keep close to the drug culture for his undercover work.

Besides the issue of jury tampering, Fulcher will argue today that he had
ineffective assistance of counsel, a standard appeals claim by defendants
who lose. He says Tony Anderson, a high-profile Roanoke defense attorney,
didn't do all that he could have to prepare for the 1992 Bedford trial.

The key witness against Fulcher at trial was his ex-girlfriend, Roseanne
"Bo" Nichols, who began cooperating with police after their break-up in
November 1991.

Nichols described how Fulcher chose rainy, foggy nights for his heists
because visibility was low then and people were likely to have their windows
closed, blocking out any sounds his breaking and entering might have made.
She testified at the time she was so scared of retaliation by the Fulcher
family that, even though Fulcher was in jail at the time, she asked a
sheriff's deputy to drive her to the Bedford courthouse the day of her
testimony.

Fulcher also was charged with breaking into Nichols' house in 1992, after
she began cooperating with police. He was accused of slashing her bed and
cutting up her underwear before stealing her two miniature schnauzers. His
bond was revoked.

Nichols later recanted her story about Fulcher's stealing the tractors, but
a judge ruled that her change of story was not credible. The couple
reconciled, and they married in prison in 1995.

Fulcher's crime spree in the early '90s resulted in a number of charges,
including federal charges involving his use of his DEA-issue alias -- which
had no criminal history -- to sell guns. His work for the DEA helped him in
federal court, but it didn't carry a lot of weight with some local
jurisdictions, his then-attorney said.

"That attitude I remember facing was, 'I don't care what he did for the
feds. He's a crook, he's a criminal, and he's going to jail,'" Anderson said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett