LAWMEN PAINT UGLY PICTURE, STAY SILENT ON WHAT'S NEXT

LUMBERTON - The accused were former Robeson County deputies, but when
U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney read the federal charges, they sounded
like the Sopranos.

Whitney mentioned Cosa Nostra as he listed their alleged crimes -
racketeering, arson, assault, theft, drug distribution and money
laundering. Whitney declined to label Roger Hugh Taylor, Charles
Thomas Strickland and Steven Ray Lovin as rogue cops, but the
implication was clear.

The 29-page federal grand jury indictment is less forgiving. It says
the men used the Sheriff's Office for a decade to commit crimes for
profit and power, using threats of physical violence and arson to make
their point.

"From a personal standpoint, I know all of them," District Attorney
Johnson Britt said. "I have worked on cases with them. It is a very
hard thing to accept in terms of what they are accused of. But in
going back and reviewing what is alleged, we wouldn't be standing here
if there wasn't evidence to support the allegations."

Agents with the SBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal
Investigation Division and Highway Patrol officers arrested the former
members of the Sheriff's Office Drug Enforcement Division on Friday.
The press conference culminated years of rumors concerning alleged
corruption at the Sheriff's Office

"It is all very sad," Taylor's mother, Mary, said. "We knew this day
might come, but it is still sad."

Efforts by The Robesonian to reach family members of Strickland and
Lovin were unsuccessful.

The men appeared in U.S. District Court in Raleigh as Attorney General
Roy Cooper joined other law enforcement brass at the Holiday Inn to
detail the charges. A bond hearing for the three is next week.

Each faces one count of racketeering; one count of conspiracy to
commit racketeering; six counts of theft from programs receiving
federal money; and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The indictment says the crimes occurred from 1995 to 2004. The
allegations include the use of marijuana as payment for committing
arson, buying a Harley Davidson motorcycle with money from illegal
activity and providing drugs to informants.

Lovin alone is accused of stealing money during six highway stops on
Interstate 95. Thousands of dollars were seized during those stops,
Whitney said, but he would not give an exact amount.

If found guilty, they could receive sentences of 10 years to life for
racketeering, 10 years on each charge of theft from programs receiving
federal money, and 20 years for conspiracy to launder money.

Sue Berry, who is listed in court records as the attorney for all
three, could not be reached.

More Arrests?

Law enforcement officials would not rule out additional
indictments.

"We can only say the investigation is continuing ... the standard U.S.
government answer," said Whitney, who leads the Eastern District of
the U.S. Attorney's Office.

When asked if possible charges may involve Sheriff Glenn Maynor, the
head of the department when the crimes allegedly occurred, Whitney
gave a slight smile, but nothing more.

"I can only talk about what is in the indictment ... I'm like Patrick
Fitzgerald at the Scooter Libby press conference," he said.

Maynor, who resigned at the end of 2004 while citing health concerns,
could not be reached for comment.

Leroy Freeman, a Maynor supporter, came to Friday's press conference,
but he and about a dozen others were barred from the press conference
that was for the media. Freeman listened in the hallway outside the
hotel banquet room, and shook his head as he leafed through a copy of
the indictments.

Freeman was disappointed that Friday's press conference didn't put an
end to years of speculation about corruption in the Sheriff's Office
and Maynor's possible involvement.

"This kind of thing happens ... unfortunately it had to happen here in
a county that already has so many black eyes," Freeman said. "With the
investigation continuing, there is still a dark cloud over us and
rumors will continue because we don't know what else may come down or
how deep any of this goes."

Just the Latest

The three-year investigation, Operation Tarnished Badge, is the latest
bad news to hit a Sheriff's Office that has already seen a detective
and another deputy case charged with kidnapping and robbery in what
authorities said was a home invasion staged as a drug raid.

In that case, two members of the Sheriff's Office were among six men
charged with kidnapping and robbery in Maxton on May 14, 2004.

Patrick Ferguson, a former deputy, was charged in April, and Vincent
Sinclair, a former detective, was indicted in August.

Authorities said the men joined civilians who posed as law officers in
holding several people at gunpoint while the home was robbed, then
kidnapped and beat a man before releasing him for a $150,000 ransom.

Investigators say Ferguson, Sinclair and the others had previously
kidnapped two drug dealers from Virginia Beach, Va.

Even before Friday's charges were disclosed, Taylor, Strickland were
forced to leave the Sheriff's Office.

Strickland, who headed the drug investigation division, resigned in
June 2003 after his credibility as an officer was questioned. In
September 2002, Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks threw out evidence
in a drug case after learning that Strickland had falsified
information to obtain a search warrant. Weeks ruled that Strickland
knowingly provided false information to a magistrate to obtain the
warrant. Strickland's law enforcement certification was revoked.

Taylor was placed on leave in late 2003 after being charged with
conspiracy and obstruction of justice in September 2003. In that case,
he was accused of allowing a convicted felon to carry a weapon during
a sting operation and trying to impede an SBI investigation. That case
is pending.

Agents searched the Drug Enforcement Division's office in March 2005
and seized documents and computers. Lovin left the Sheriff's Office in
July of that year.

Britt said he had to dismiss between 200 to 300 cases involving as
many as 100 defendants because the former deputies were no longer
credible. He said there is at least one case where an "individual was
wrongfully convicted" and served time. He plans to ask a judge to
vacate that sentence.