WARREN DEPUTY FACES FEDERAL DRUG CHARGES

Police arrested a Warren County sheriff's deputy this week on charges that
he gave jail inmates illegal drugs and helped them evade police detection.

Kevin Glin Kinsey, 22, faces a six-count federal indictment on
drug-distribution and drug-conspiracy charges, which could yield a prison
term of 140 years.

Kinsey, of Front Royal, had been with the Warren sheriff's office part time
for less than a year, Sheriff Lynn Armentrout said at a news conference at
the U.S. attorney's office in Charlottesville.

A federal grand jury in Charlottesville indicted Kinsey on Tuesday. After
his arrest, he tested positive for cocaine and marijuana, leading a judge
to order him held without bail after a hearing yesterday, said Assistant
U.S. Attorney Thomas J. Bondurant Jr.

Kinsey joined the sheriff's office in Warren, a county of 32,000 in the
northern Shenandoah Valley, in April. During the summer, he was assigned to
the county's Restitution and Inmate Development Program, Armentrout said.

Inmates in the program work during the day and sleep in a dormitory setting
apart from the jail. Deputies supervised inmates alone. Kinsey worked the 4
p.m.-to-midnight shift two to five days per week, the sheriff said.

In September, an informer told Warren investigators about Kinsey's alleged
drug distribution. County authorities notified the FBI. The county aided
federal investigators during a five-month probe that led to Kinsey's
indictment, police said.

The indictment accuses Kinsey of conspiring to distribute crack cocaine,
cocaine, marijuana and prescription pills to inmates. He also is accused of
accepting drugs from inmates for personal use and falsifying drug and
alcohol tests for them in return.

Kinsey arranged drug deals from a phone at the work-release building,
according to court papers. The indictment alleges that he once tipped off
an inmate to a search for drugs at the inmate's home.

He is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute drugs and five
counts of distributing crack cocaine. The sheriff's office has placed him
on administrative leave.

No other members of the office are under suspicion in the case, federal
investigators said.

The sheriff's office has instituted a system of checks on officers
supervising the work-release program. The office has not tested employees
for drugs but will consider it, Armentrout said.

"I'd hate to put a loyal, 35-year employee through something like that, but
it's something we're looking at," he said.

Joining the sheriff at the news conference were John L. Brownlee, U.S.
attorney for the Western District of Virginia, and other federal and local
authorities who worked on the case.

Armentrout said he had never had to deal with such an investigation during
28 years as sheriff and 38 in law enforcement.

"I feel like I let the community down by giving this guy a badge," he said.

Brownlee commended Armentrout and the sheriff's office for calling in
federal authorities and helping investigate one of their own.

"This is a tough case. It always is whenever law enforcement is on this end
of a criminal indictment," Brownlee said.