FORMER ROBESON LAWMAN PLEADS GUILTY

ELIZABETH CITY -- Steven Lovin stood Friday morning in a green jail
jumpsuit before U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle.

"And are you in fact guilty?" Boyle asked the former Robeson County
deputy. "Yes, sir, I am," Lovin responded.

And with those words another chapter ended in the four-year
investigation into corruption in the Robeson County Sheriff's Office.
Lovin was the last of 16 deputies to plead guilty -- in his case to
stealing tens of thousands of dollars from drug interdiction stops
along Interstate 95 and to pirating satellite TV signals.

Lovin faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on the racketeering
conviction and five years on the satellite piracy charge. He had
faced the possibility of life in prison before he agreed to cooperate
with investigators in exchange for a lesser sentence.

All 16 of the deputies charged in Operation Tarnished Badge have
pleaded guilty and have agreed to testify against others who
committed crimes. Prosecutors have indicated that more arrests are
coming, but they won't say who it might be or when the charges might come.

All of the convicted deputies worked under former Sheriff Glenn
Maynor, who ran the office from 1994 until he resigned in December
2004, citing health reasons. Maynor has not been charged, but some of
the convicted deputies have testified that they helped a local
elected official landscape his yard and work at his golf fundraiser
on taxpayers' time.

Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said last year that
investigators substantiated allegations that deputies once helped
Maynor move, landscaped his yard and worked at his golf tournament.
Lovin was indicted almost a year ago, along with former deputies
Roger Taylor and C.T. Strickland. They were the only deputies
indicted. Initially, all three had planned to go to trial. But
Strickland agreed in February to plead guilty to stealing an amount
less than $70,000 from the federal drug equity-sharing program --
money the federal government reimburses local law agencies in drug cases.

Earlier this month, Taylor pleaded guilty to stealing money from the
same federal program and with satellite piracy. Taylor said he never
benefited personally from the money.

Like all of the deputies who have been convicted, Lovin, Taylor and
Strickland will be sentenced later.

When that day comes, some of the highest-ranking deputies in the
Robeson County Sheriff's Office could find themselves behind bars.
Strickland supervised the Drug Enforcement Division. Taylor oversaw
the Communications Division. Randal Patterson and Billy Strickland
pleaded guilty to satellite piracy -- using altered computerized
cards to receive free TV signals. Those two were command majors,
below only the chief deputy and the sheriff.

Children suffer Family members who attended Lovin's hearing Friday
said the investigation has been tough on all of them.

"This is what's been hard, these two children," said Lovin's wife,
Lorrie. The Lovins' boys are 8 years old and 10 months old.

"You don't know how cruel other people can be to younger people,"
said Lovin's mother, Judy.

For now, Lovin will be able to see his family again. Boyle agreed to
release him from jail while he awaits sentencing. Lovin had been
ordered to jail in February because he talked to people who were
expected to testify at his trial, which had been set for July.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Wes Camden did no go into detail about
Lovin's crimes. Camden said they involved stealing money from six
drug-interdiction stops. He said Lovin used the money for his "own
private benefit." Investigators seized a Ford pickup and a
Harley-Davidson motorcycle from Lovin. Earlier testimony revealed
that Lovin worked the interstate with former deputy James Hunt. Hunt
testified that he and Lovin would stop drug dealers, seize their
money and turn most of it in to the Sheriff's Office. Hunt testified
that he stole an estimated $160,000 in drug money, acknowledging that
he spent about $8,000 of it to pave his driveway and about $16,000 on
a pontoon boat.

He said he and Lovin split the money. The two once taught a
drug-interdiction course to law officers from around the country.

Since 1996 Lorrie Lovin said she took exception to an Observer story
earlier this week that called her husband a ringleader. She said the
federal indictment shows that crimes had occurred since at least
1996, long before her husband is accused of committing them between
2001 and 2004.

"It's a shame that all of the good things they have done have not
been printed," she said. "And how much drug stuff has reoccurred
because they are not around." Denny Lovin held his young grandson in
the courthouse lobby a few minutes after his son pleaded guilty. He
said the investigation has been a constant struggle on his family.

"You just hope it comes to an end," he said.