WOODALL'S STATEMENT ON BUST CONTRADICTED

A Davidson County Sheriff's Office lieutenant contradicts former First Lt.
Scott Woodall's recent statement that the cocaine used to convict a
Lexington man on a drug distribution charge was planted.

In an affidavit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, Lt.
Steven E. Jones said he crawled under Terrence Barriet's house on Bristol
Street in May 1999 with former Lt. Doug Westmoreland and retrieved a
plastic bag containing crack from a drain below a commode.

The office of U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner submitted the affidavit in
an effort to convince a judge to reject Barriet's pending motion to vacate
his 10-year sentence on drug and firearms charges.

Barriet's motion relies dramatically on an affidavit from Woodall stating
that Barriet had no drugs that day.

Barriet and Woodall are both serving sentences, now in the same federal
prison in Manchester, Ky.

Woodall, Westmoreland, Sgt. Billy Rankin of the sheriff's narcotics office,
Thomasville police Sgt. Rusty McHenry, Archdale police Sgt. Chris Shetley
and five civilians all went to federal prison this year after pleading
guilty to roles in a conspiracy that distributed large amounts of cocaine,
steroids, marijuana and Ecstasy.

Court documents accused the law enforcement officers of abusing their
authority in a host of ways, including writing fake search warrants,
planting evidence and fabricating charges, keeping drugs and money seized
during arrests, attempting to extort more money from the people arrested,
and intimidating suspects and potential witnesses.

As for Barriet, state court records show a long list of charges against
him, including a conviction for possessing cocaine with intent to sell or
deliver, starting roughly in 1992.

Based on evidence from the May 1999 raid, a federal grand jury indicted
Barriet on charges of possessing 25.1 grams of crack cocaine and possessing
a firearm by a convicted felon.

Although Barriet maintains in court papers that he told his public defender
the drugs were planted, he pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court
and received a 120-month sentence in June 2000.

In May of this year, two months after Woodall pleaded guilty to conspiracy
to distribute four kinds of drugs and to a pair of other charges, Barriet
started trying to file a Section 2255 motion to vacate, set aside or
correct his sentence.

After Woodall went to prison for 27 years in July, Barriet filed Woodall's
affidavit, which stated that "officers of the arrest detail manufactured
evidence and testimony/statements against Terrence Barriet; to wit, planted
crack cocaine in a drain plug." Westmoreland, Rankin and other officers
also were present during the bust, court documents indicate.

Like Barriet's motion, Jones' affidavit, filed Thursday, gives a detailed
account of the raid on Bristol Street. About 9:05 p.m., officers leaped
from a van, ran onto the porch and announced their intentions, Jones
stated. Detective Jeff Medlin, another former member of the sheriff's
narcotics unit, hit the door three times with a ram and Jones pushed his
way past a sofa used to block the door.

Jones stated that he saw Barriet run into the bathroom and close the
bathroom door. Jones kicked the door off its frame with his right foot.
Barriet's daughter was in the bathtub and his wife, Michelle, was sitting
on the toilet. "I told her not to flush it, but she had already done so,
and the tank was filling back up," Jones said. Officers could find no drugs
in the toilet itself, even after they later broke it apart.

After the Barriets were secured, Jones stated, he went under the house with
Westmoreland and located the clean-out plug directly under the commode.
"Sgt. Westmoreland then unscrewed the plug and started to scrape out old
soap buildup and waste floating in the pipe. He then asked me if I saw
plastic floating, I said yes and he used a coat hanger to reach up there
and pull it out. It was a large cookie of crack cocaine sealed in plastic
and tied off."

During a subsequent interview by officers, Jones stated, Barriet admitted
selling crack but also said the cocaine found in the sewer line wasn't his
because it was too white in color and too great in quantity. Barriet said
he had purchased 10 grams of crack that was "'brown,' like butter" earlier
that day in Winston-Salem.

Jones stated that Barriet told officers he was willing to pull jail time
but asked them to leave his wife out of it. Woodall's affidavit said the
officers used the threat of charges against Barriet's wife to coerce a
confession from him. Michelle Barriet ended up pleading guilty in state
court to cocaine possession under a community sentencing program and
received a fine and probation.

Jones' statement appears to repeat word for word a report he filed at the
time of the bust. In comparison, the U.S. Attorney's Office argues in its
motion, "Woodall's statement is not credible."

Unlike the drug case of another Lexington man, Joseph Hedgepeth, "the
government has been unable to substantiate the allegation of police
misconduct in this case," the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote. After Hedgepeth
filed a Section 2255 motion arguing that some of the same sheriff's
narcotics officers had violated his rights in obtaining a conviction
against him, the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed earlier this year that the
motion should be granted. Hedgepeth is now a free man.

In the Barriet case, the U.S. Attorney's Office further argues that the
defendant's motion is barred because it came more than a year after his
conviction. The government also notes that Barriet, a felon, does not deny
illegally possessing a firearm.

Ultimately, however, a federal judge might have to decide which affidavit
to believe - Woodall's or Jones'.