EX-DEPUTY SENTENCED ON DRUG, GUN CHARGES

Incident happened in Portsmouth

He had been employed by the Roanoke County Sheriff's Office for less than a
week when he was arrested.

A former Roanoke County sheriff's deputy who had a gun and cocaine in his
car when he tried to solicit a Portsmouth prostitute was sentenced Tuesday
to five years in prison.

However, Damany King was allowed to remain free on bond while he appeals his
conviction, according to Bill Prince, spokesman for the commonwealth's
attorney in Portsmouth.

When he was arrested last July, King had been employed by the Roanoke County
Sheriff's Office for less than a week. He has since been fired.

At an earlier hearing in Portsmouth Circuit Court, the following account
emerged: King, 32, was visiting a friend in Portsmouth when police saw him
pull his car over and solicit sex from a woman they knew to be a prostitute.

The woman fled when police approached. A search of King's car revealed two
plastic bags containing a small amount of cocaine on the floor and his
service revolver in the trunk.

Although it was not a large amount of cocaine, King was sentenced to five
years under a law that makes prison time mandatory when a gun is found along
with drugs.

King's gun was not loaded at the time, and he argued during his trial that
it was not being used in association with his drug possession. However,
Circuit Judge Jack Cales was bound by the law to give him five years.

"This is the law," Prince said. "There's not a whole lot of discretion that
we have about it."

King also faced a second charge of simple drug possession; Cales gave him a
five-year suspended sentence for that.

King's lawyer, Richard Levin of Portsmouth, declined to comment after the
hearing on his client's expected appeal. Levin also declined to say where
King now lives.