N.C. CAR DEALER SUES FEDS IN ROANOKE

Bill Kennedy maintains that he has been targeted by the Drug
Enforcement Administration in Roanoke for dealing in dirty money.

Just because Bill Kennedy trucks in high-end Mercedes, BMWs and
Cadillac Escalades, doesn't mean he's selling cars to drug dealers, he
says.

Four of the North Carolina used-car dealer's cars have been seized as
part of drug investigations in Roanoke. Kennedy, 74, filed a lawsuit
this week in federal court to get back what he says is $90,000 worth
of luxury cars: a 1998 Lexus GS300; a 2000 Jaguar S-Type V-8; a 2003
Cadillac Escalade; and a 2000 Jaguar 3.0 S-Type.

Kennedy maintains that he - and by extension, his jacked-up luxury
vehicles - has been targeted by the Drug Enforcement Administration in
Roanoke for dealing in dirty money.

"If a preacher's driving the car, they're going to take it," Kennedy
said.

He estimated that cars he sold to people in Roanoke have depreciated
as much as $25,000 since law enforcement officers began seizing them
in the past year. The people who bought the cars made down payments
and set up financing plans, so Kennedy says he still has an interest
in the cars.

Kennedy's been known to call up someone's mother, pretending to be her
son's friend, and tell her he wants to get her son the $100 he owes
him - all to get the phone number of someone who's late with his payments.

Kenny Garrett, a DEA task force officer in Roanoke who Kennedy swears
told him in a phone conversation "I have news for you, I'm going to
pick up every car you own in Roanoke," said it's common for cars to be
seized as part of criminal investigations.

Garrett confirmed that Kennedy's cars have been seized as part of drug
investigations. But he denied he ever told Kennedy that the DEA would
pick up all his cars, and maintains that Kennedy at first just didn't
want to fill out the necessary paperwork to make a claim on the cars.

If Kennedy can prove he has an ownership interest in the cars, he
should be entitled to them, Garrett said.

"The government's not going to punish somebody if they're not involved
in criminal activity," Garrett said.

Asked whether Kennedy was correct about his sense that he was being
targeted, Garrett replied, "Actually, we're targeting drug dealers,
and I guess some of his property was mixed in."

Kennedy says Garrett has repeatedly implied to him when Kennedy has
called him trying to get his cars back that he knows he's selling to
drug dealers.

"What he's saying is that none of the blacks should be able to afford
a car like that, you should know that," Kennedy said. People come to
his dealership because he sells certain cars that people can only get
in Atlanta or the Northeast, he said.

But Kennedy maintains that his job is selling and financing cars, and
it's up to law enforcement to figure out who the drug dealers are.

"People tell me they're bricklayers, barbers, run cleanup shops, have
all these people working for them," Kennedy said. "Who am I supposed
to believe?"

To be sure, Kennedy uses some interesting tactics when it comes to
selling cars. He said he does not check a person's credit, but instead
gets the names and phone numbers of all the person's relatives, so
that he knows whom to call when the payments stop coming in.

Kennedy, who is represented by Art Strickland of Roanoke, said he
thinks the whole thing started in September 2002, when he sold a
Roanoke man a white 1999 Infiniti Q-45.

Before the man reported for a jail term, he hid the Infiniti, Kennedy
said. Kennedy's contacts in Roanoke were on the lookout for the car
for months. Then one day, one of Kennedy's freelance repossessors
pulled up behind the car and nabbed it, Kennedy said.

The man was so angry he later told Kennedy that he would tell law
enforcement officers that Kennedy sold cars to drug dealers. Since
then, Kennedy feels he's been a target.

Sales records provided by Kennedy show that the Roanoke resident who
bought the Infiniti Q-45 was James Albert Bumbry Jr.

Bumbry was recently sentenced to more than 6 1/2 years in prison for
possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and for a probation
violation. Bumbry, 26, was also present Feb. 12, 2002, when off-duty
DEA agent Timothy Workman shot and killed Bumbry's friend Keith Bailey
in the parking lot of a Valley View Boulevard restaurant after an
altercation.

Bumbry, who has also been convicted of drug offenses in the past, is
in custody at Roanoke City Jail and did not return a request for comment.

But his father, James Albert Bumbry Sr., confirmed that his son had
bought an Infiniti Q-45 from outside Virginia, but said he didn't know
anything else about it.

As for Kennedy, he suspects he's being set up because of the men who
he says have come into his dealership in recent months, pockets
bulging with money, asking him to help them "clean my money" when they
haven't even looked at any cars.

Asked again whether Kennedy was being investigated, Garrett replied,
"I can't comment on ongoing investigations." He did say that car
dealers have been prosecuted in the past for money laundering, however.

Kennedy vows he's not putting another expensive car in Roanoke for it
to be picked up and impounded.

"It's a rough business, and it gets rougher all the time," Kennedy
said.