FORMER DEPUTY'S SENTENCE IN DOUBT

Wrong Guidelines Used, U.S. Appeals Panel Rules

Douglas Westmoreland, a former Davidson County sheriff's deputy now serving
prison time on drug charges, could have his 11-year sentence reduced.

Westmoreland, 51, will return to federal court to be sentenced again
because U.S. District Court officials used incorrect guidelines in setting
his sentence, a three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled in a decision released yesterday.

The new sentencing may or may not reduce the amount of time that
Westmoreland will spend in prison, said Urs Gsteiger, his attorney.

A date for a new sentencing hearing has not been set, Gsteiger said.

Westmoreland, a former sheriff's lieutenant, was one of three deputies with
the Davidson County Sheriff's Office arrested last year as part of a drug
ring that distributed steroids, cocaine and marijuana in the area.

Only the reported ringleader, former Lt. David Scott Woodall, received a
longer sentence than Westmoreland out of five law-enforcement officers
involved in the scheme. Woodall was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.

According to court documents, Westmoreland and other officers carried out a
search warrant at the home of Michael Wayne Martin, a Davidson County
resident. Westmoreland found $2,500 in a pair of pants in Martin's bedroom
but did not record the money on an inventory sheet from the search.

About a month later, Westmoreland and another unidentified officer met with
Martin and told him that if he didn't complain about the money that was
taken, no charges would be filed.

Martin accepted the deal and no charges were filed, according to the
appellate court's summary of the case.

Westmoreland was charged with extortion for that incident, as well as
conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana. In July 2002, he was
sentenced to two concurrent terms of 135 months in prison. He is jailed at
the Loretto Federal Correctional Institute in Loretto, Pa.

Westmoreland appealed his sentence earlier this year, arguing that the
court used a tougher extortion guideline - 'extortion by force or threat of
injury or serious damage' - than the case merited. He argued that the
guideline that should have been used was 'blackmail and similar forms of
extortion.'

The appeals court determined that his threat to press criminal charges
didn't involve force and didn't involve a threat of physical injury or a
threat of any destruction of property.

Westmoreland's actions also did not constitute blackmail, the court
determined, because he was not demanding money but instead was trying to
hold on to money that he had seized.

The most appropriate guideline, the court ruled, should therefore be
related to receiving a bribe: 'offering, giving, soliciting or receiving a
bribe -- under color of official right.'

Gstieger said that it will be up to the sentencing judge to determine how
the court's decision will influence Westmoreland's sentence, but that it
could result in less time in prison.

Lynn Klauer, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Greensboro,
said that she could not assess how the court's ruling might affect
Westmoreland's sentence.