SOME NOT SURPRISED BY ROBESON LAWMEN'S ARRESTS

LUMBERTON -- The rumors persisted for years: Some Robeson County
deputies were beating up drug dealers and stealing their money.
Carlton Mansfield and other criminal defense lawyers say they
repeatedly tried to tell former Sheriff Glenn Maynor and the District
Attorney's Office about the corrupt lawmen.

"Their attitude was, 'Well, your clients are drug dealers, and we are
not going to put any stock in what they say,'" Mansfield said. It
took a 3 1/2-year investigation by state and federal authorities to
determine that the lawyers might be right.

On June 9, a U.S. attorney outlined charges in a 29-page indictment
against three former drug enforcement deputies -- Roger Hugh Taylor,
Charles Thomas Strickland and Steven Ray Lovin. The three Lumberton
men were arrested that morning. The indictment accuses them of
stealing tens of thousands of dollars seized during traffic stops for
drugs. It says that the men firebombed homes and that Taylor
repeatedly paid off confidential informants with marijuana and
cocaine. Six sheriff's deputies and two Lumberton police officers
have been charged since Operation Tarnished Badge began, and
investigators say more arrests are likely. All six deputies worked --
at one time or another -- in the sheriff's Drug Enforcement Division.
Two deputies are accused of kidnapping drug dealers and holding them
for ransom.

The arrests leave another stain on a county that has long suffered
from poverty, racial division, high crime and accusations of
political corruption.

"In my opinion, this is one of the worst black marks that we can have
against us here in the county," former Sheriff Hubert Stone said. "It
really bothers me that this is happening. Most of our law enforcement
officers in Robeson County are good, clean, hardworking, underpaid
guys. That's what makes it so sad. Everybody is looking down on them,
and most are really good law enforcement officers." Sheriff's Office
search Operation Tarnished Badge reached its zenith in March 2005,
when federal and state agents arrived at the Sheriff's Office with a
Ryder rental truck and spent the next four hours seizing documents
and computers. During detention hearings Wednesday for two of the
accused deputies, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wes Camden described what
investigators found during their search of the Sheriff's Office.

Camden said investigators entered the Drug Enforcement Division and
discovered large quantities of drugs lying around the room. Seized
drugs are supposed to be packaged, tagged and given to an evidence
custodian for safekeeping until trial.

Instead, District Attorney Johnson Britt said, drugs were found in
deputies' desks, in their cars and out in the open. Camden said some
packages had been tagged, but the drugs that were supposed to be
inside were missing. Shortly after the search, Britt said, current
Sheriff Kenneth Sealey requested a meeting with him. Britt said he
told Sealey that deputies had been in the drug division far too long.
He said too many drug dealers knew them, and the potential for
corruption heightens the longer low-paid deputies stay in the drug unit.

Britt said he advised Sealey to reassign his drug enforcement
deputies. Sealey took the advice, Britt said, and within about a week
five of them -- Lovin, James Hunt, Billy Hunt, Kevin Mears and Joey
Smith -- had turned in their badges and resigned.

No charges have been brought against any of those men except Lovin,
but the investigation continues.

Sealey and Maynor did not return telephone calls last week about the
problems in the Sheriff's Office. Britt said Sealey has cooperated
fully with state and federal investigators and is not considered a
suspect. But Britt said Sealey and Maynor -- the sheriff from 1994 to
2004 -- failed to supervise their employees.

The drug division is adjacent to Sealey's office. Drug deputies have
reported directly to the sheriff since Maynor had a falling out with
Mark Locklear, his former chief deputy, Britt said.

As for Maynor, Britt said, "Officially, he is not a suspect, as I
understand it. "I think from the public's perception there are
certain questions about what Sheriff Maynor knew and how much he knew
and was he involved in any of this?" Maynor resigned in December
2004, citing health reasons. Investigators say deputies had been
corrupt almost from the time Maynor became sheriff 10 years earlier.

But allegations of corruption surfaced long before then. In 1988,
Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs held 20 people hostage at gunpoint
inside The Robesonian newspaper until state officials agreed to
investigate their allegations of corruption, including drug dealing
by law officers. A state task force later determined the allegations
to be unfounded. Stone was the sheriff back then, and some of the men
under indictment today worked for him. Stone served as sheriff for 16
years before retiring in 1994. "When I left," he said, "I don't
believe anyone could say they were not real clean, straightforward
guys. With no supervision, over time they just changed." Indictment
allegations According to the indictment unsealed June 9, former
deputies Taylor, Strickland and Lovin went to the home of drug dealer
Hubert Ray Locklear on March 14, 1997.

Britt said the deputies had arrested Locklear many times before, only
to see him released from jail and back home dealing drugs. Britt
surmises that the deputies wanted to intimidate Locklear enough to
put him out of business for good. They went to his home, beat him up,
placed him under arrest and forced everyone else to leave, Britt
said. Then they firebombed his home, burning it to the ground, he said.

Britt said the Robeson County Sheriff's Office never investigated the
firebombing.

That same year, according to the indictment, Taylor was providing
informants with large amounts of drugs. One time, he gave an
informant about 3ounces of cocaine. Another time, the indictment
says, he gave away two trash bags full of marijuana.

On July 1, 1998, Camden said, Taylor paid someone $1,600 to burn an
occupied home owned by Lewis Vernon, a personal enemy. A week later,
Camden said, someone poured gasoline through a back window and down a
wall of Vernon's pawnshop in downtown Lumberton. The business was
destroyed. Camden said Taylor paid the arsonist with between 20 and
25 pounds of marijuana. Those are just some of the many charges in
the 10-count indictment. Others describe six thefts of money during
drug interdiction stops on Interstate 95, beatings of drug dealers,
the filing of false vouchers to steal thousands of dollars from
county taxpayers and tens of thousands in federal drug-seizure money.

Britt said part of the reason the investigation began was that the
deputies were living far beyond their means. Investigators seized a
Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a Ford F-250 from Lovin.

Evidence mounts It took Mansfield, the pony-tailed criminal defense
lawyer, to finally put the focus on the allegedly crooked lawmen.

Mansfield, who makes a living off defending drug abusers, said
Operation Tarnished Badge began to unfold in 2002 because of one of
his cases. That year, Mansfield said, he accused Strickland -- the
drug unit's supervisor -- of lying on an affidavit to obtain a
warrant to search the home of drug dealer Chris Logan.

Unlike previous times when he had accused deputies of lying,
Mansfield said, he now had the evidence to prove it.

Mansfield said Logan's girlfriend was mad at him and sought revenge
by having him arrested on drug charges. The girlfriend met with
Strickland and another drug agent in February 2002 and set up a sting
in which her friend would buy cocaine from Logan.

In his affidavit for the search warrant, Strickland said the
informant had been to Logan's home before and had bought cocaine
there. He also said the informant was reliable because she had
provided truthful information in the past. In reality, Mansfield
said, the informant had never met Strickland before and had never
bought cocaine at Logan's home. Mansfield said the informant came to
him and was willing to testify against Strickland. In May 2002,
Mansfield filed a motion to suppress all evidence gathered in the
search of Logan's home and vehicles. Judge Gregory Weeks upheld the
motion that September, and District Attorney Britt was forced to drop
the case. Mansfield said Strickland did not face any form of
punishment until the two squared off again in court months later. On
cross-examination during the second case, Mansfield asked Strickland
whether he had lied on the affidavit to search Logan's home.
Strickland was trapped.

"That man is the only man we know for sure is a liar," Mansfield told
the court. Again, charges were dropped.

Britt said he wrote a letter to Maynor saying he had no choice but to
dismiss all of Strickland's cases because his credibility was shot.
Strickland was forced to resign in June 2003.

While that was happening, Britt had called for his own SBI
investigation of two other sheriff's deputies -- Taylor and Sgt. J.W.
Jacobs -- over allegations that they allowed informant Scott
LeClaire, a convicted felon, to carry a 9 mm handgun during a sting
operation in November 2001. Court records show that Jacobs and Taylor
tried to cover up LeClaire's role in a case in which three men
allegedly stormed into a home wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the
word "police" on their chests.

At Britt's direction, LeClaire went to the SBI to outline his
involvement as an informant for the Sheriff's Office and the
Lumberton Police Department. The information LeClaire provided also
led to allegations of wrongdoing by police officers Leon Oxendine and
James Jordan. Those two were accused of having LeClaire plant a
computer disk containing an image of a counterfeit $100 bill at the
home of a suspected drug dealer.

Jordan pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in exchange for his testimony
against Oxendine, who was convicted in 2004 of tampering with a
witness, making false statements to the FBI and five counts of making
false declarations. The day before LeClaire was to have testified
against Jacobs and Taylor, Britt said, his home was firebombed. Terry
Kenworthy of Maxton was charged with arson, and LeClaire was placed
in protective custody. Britt called the arson "very suspicious, very
coincidental." While Operation Tarnished Badge gained momentum, a
bizarre crime happened that would again implicate sheriff's deputies.

In February 2004, investigators say, former sheriff's deputies
Vincent Sinclair and Patrick Ferguson kidnapped two alleged drug
dealers from Virginia Beach, Va. The men managed to escape in
Smithfield and alerted police. Sinclair and Ferguson also are accused
of kidnapping a St. Pauls man and holding him until a $150,000 ransom
was paid. The men are accused of robbing several drug dealers in
Robeson County and other areas. An indictment says they beat and
robbed the dealers. Sinclair is accused of burning a man with lighter
fluid during a robbery in April 2004.

Lasting effects Robeson County officials say it will be hard to heal
from the allegations of police corruption.

Britt, the district attorney, said he will have to throw out more
than 300 drug cases, further eroding the public's confidence in the
county's judicial system and the people who enforce its laws.

Britt makes no excuses for what happened, but urges people to
consider how it could. Robeson is a large and poor rural county in
which 60 deputies are required to patrol 1,000 square miles. By
comparison, Cumberland County has more than 200 deputies to oversee less area.

Law officers work day in and day out with drug dealers, many of whom
are arrested only to return to the streets in a matter of days. Money
and drugs are everywhere.

"The temptation is great," Britt said. "Police officers don't get
paid a lot of money." Many work two or three jobs to make ends meet.
"You can fall into the trap," Britt said.

Now, he said, it's time to try to heal. "As a county, we are going to
have to come together to improve our self-image," Britt said. "I
think the Sheriff's Office has to work hard to improve its image.

"One way of improving that image is to go to work and go to work hard
and show your commitment to the community." A good place to start,
Britt said, is for the Sheriff's Office to form its own internal
affairs division as a way to police itself. He said the office is the
only law enforcement agency in the county without one. It's been that
way for years.

Meanwhile, Operation Tarnished Badge will continue. "Nobody knows
when it will end," Britt said. "It's not going to end until we're
satisfied that we have been able to uncover all that has gone on."