EX-TROOPER PLEADS GUILTY

Admits He Failed To Report Drug Dealer; Other Counts Dropped; Co-Defendant
Still Faces Trial

Former state trooper Marshall Lewis King, who won a new trial after being
convicted on drug-conspiracy charges, pleaded guilty yesterday to failing
to report a drug dealer he knew about.

King pleaded to one count of misprision of a felony and is scheduled for
sentencing May 27 by U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne.

King and Bruno Lewis Crutchfield, a former police officer in Brodnax, were
scheduled for a new trial March 23. Crutchfield's status had not changed
yesterday.

As for King, all other charges were dropped yesterday, including those
arising from an accusation that - in the summer of 2002, just after the
convictions were set aside - he tried pay one of the prosecution witnesses
against him to say a police officer asked him to lie in court.

"We saw resolving the case this way as an opportunity to bring it to a
close," said Matthew P. Geary, King's lawyer. "It gives him some certainty
about what will happen. . . . We've been fighting this battle with the
government since 1999."

Geary said the guilty plea that King made yesterday acknowledged that he
was aware of illegal activity and did not report it.

But King had adamantly maintained from the beginning that he was not guilty
of the drug-conspiracy charge and the multiple charges of drug-dealing and
other misdeeds in the original prosecution case.

The original charges against King and Crutchfield were conspiracy to
distribute cocaine, failing to report a felony and multiple other charges
based on actions that were alleged to be part of the conspiracy.

He and Crutchfield, who also sought exoneration, were accused of providing
protection for a drug-dealing operation run by King's nephew. The U.S.
attorney's office alleged that they had traded drugs to crack-addicted
women for sex, taken money and drugs from dealers and warned some dealers
about police investigations.

The illegal activities allegedly took place over several years in the
jurisdictions King was assigned to patrol as a state trooper. He was based
in Brunswick County.

In November 2000, a jury convicted them both of the drug-conspiracy charge
and King of failing to report a felony. But the jury acquitted them of the
other counts of specific misdeeds that supported the conspiracy charge.

Payne, in April 2001, sentenced King to 15 years and 8 months in prison and
Crutchfield to 12 years and 7 months. A year later, Geary went to court
seeking a new trial on evidence that King's nephew and other key witnesses
had perjured themselves.

In the summer of 2002, Payne set aside that conviction and ordered a new
trial. Payne's decision was affirmed by the federal appeals court in July
last year.

Geary said he and King hope Payne will sentence King to the time he has
already served in prison. That's about 25 months, Geary said, based on his
calculations and information from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Failure to
report a felony carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

King has been free on bond, with restrictions, since the end of 2002.

Geary said King is starting a trucking business by himself that will do
mostly short-haul trucking within Virginia.

"Marshall's doing really well now," Geary said yesterday. "He's back with
his family, and they are all doing really well."