NARCOTICS BUREAU CHIEF FOCUSES ON GRAND JURY INVESTIGATIONS

PATTON TOWNSHIP -- Tapped last month to direct and supervise
drug-enforcement activities in 14 counties, Randy Feathers has big plans
for the future, including making the resources offered by the state
attorney general's office more accessible.

As the director of the State College regional office of the attorney
general's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation, Feathers and his investigators
will work closely with drug task forces -- including Centre County's -- to
build airtight cases. The 24-year police veteran has spent more than a
dozen years involved in drug enforcement. For the past eight years, he has
been the supervisor of the Blair County Drug Task Force.

Feathers replaces William "Ron" Smeal, who left the director's job in May
for a position in the planning, research and training department of the
state attorney general's office. Smeal now works at the state's Gaming
Control Board, according to Nils Frederiksen, spokesman for the state
attorney general's office.

Among the many unique enforcement pushes Feathers was involved with was a
program that put an undercover agent in a Blair County high school. That
investigation resulted in 16 drug arrests, including that of two brothers
supplying heroin to students, Feathers said.

"The Blair County task force was very busy and productive," Feathers said.
"I really want to take the success of Blair County and put it up here."

One of his focuses as the director of the Bureau of Narcotics Investigation
will be on grand jury investigations, similar to the one that netted
alleged drug kingpin Taji "Verbal" Lee, indicted by a state grand jury and
charged in March. Lee is accused of bringing in more than $1.5 million in
heroin and cocaine into Centre County. The grand jury also indicted eight
others believed to have been working with Lee since 2003.

Lee and his co-defendants are still awaiting trial.

Grand jury investigations allow prosecutors to get at top-level drug
dealers who tend to insulate themselves by making others buy, package, sell
and collect money for the drugs, Feathers said. It also allows police and
prosecutors to build a historical case through witness testimony, phone and
financial records.

Blair County regularly used grand jury indictments under Feathers'
leadership, cases which resulted in sentences from 60 to 150 years.

"We never lost a grand jury case in Blair County," he said. "They're tough
to defend."

But many counties do not have the time or resources to undertake a grand
jury investigations. Instead, drug-enforcement officers rely mainly on
undercover buys to build their cases.

"It's expensive for local district attorneys. It's time-consuming for
smaller staffs," said Senior Deputy Attorney General Michael Madeira, based
at the attorney general's State College office. "But we have people at the
attorney general's office where (grand jury investigations) are their
full-time jobs."

Madeira, who worked with Feathers for many years back when the agent headed
the Blair County task force, praised him for his aggressive law enforcement.

"What he's now going to be directing the agents in this office to do, he's
already done," Madeira said. "He can say 'This works. Let's do it.' ...
Like any good general, he's been in the field."