LEE NARCOTICS UNIT RECOVERING FROM SUSPENSIONS

Harold Ray Presley's death not only took Lee County's sheriff away, the
wake that followed saw five Lee County deputies taken off of the force.

Jason Stanford, Danny Dillard, Gary Dodds, John Lee and Jack Tate were
suspended on Aug. 10, 2001, pending a federal and state investigation into
the death of Billy Ray Stone. Dillard and Stanford were eventually indicted
and charged with violating the civil rights of Stone, who gunned down
Presley on July 6, 2001. The indicted deputies will stand trial in U.S.
District Court in Greenville beginning on Monday.

Those suspensions totally wiped out the Lee County Narcotics Unit, where
Dodds, Stanford and Dillard each served.

"When I came in as sheriff, I didn't really have a narcotics unit," said
Lee County Sheriff Larry Presley. "The unit was doing a lot when the
officers got suspended, so we were in a rough spot."

He didn't have any active narcotics officers and, to make the situation
even worse, he didn't have the funding in his budget needed to hire more
officers because the officers were still receiving pay checks.

"When the indictments came down against Jason (Stanford) and Danny
(Dillard), I had the money to go ahead and replace them because their
suspension went from paid to unpaid," Presley said.

Presley moved patrol deputies Tony Rogers and Scott Medlock into the
narcotics unit and hired on veteran narcotics officer Ricky Peterson to
head the revamped group.

"Ricky's been at it for 30 years," Presley said. "He knows all of the other
agency heads and that is a big help."

Gary Dodds, initially suspended after Billy Ray Stone's death, returned to
the department but not as a narcotics officer. Presley said Dodds is a
master trainer for narcotics dogs and now works with the department's drug dog.

Presley said Stanford and Dillard will be allowed back to the department if
they are not convicted of violating Stone's civil rights, but he's not
certain if they will return as narcotics officers.

"We are working hard to have a better narcotics division," Presley said. "I
think that things are getting better every day."