OFFICER ACCUSED OF FALSIFYING WARRANT

LUMBERTON -- District Attorney Johnson Britt says he plans to drop felony
drug charges against two men because a Superior Court judge has ruled that
a drug-enforcement officer made false statements to obtain a search warrant.

Britt said that Christopher Dean Logan and Gary McLean's multiple drug
charges will be dropped because evidence seized in the case is unusable.
Logan and McLean were originally charged with felony possession of
marijuana, felony possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine,
possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Britt said that Carlton Mansfield, Logan and McLean's attorney, contested
the warrant used to charge the men and search their Red Springs home. The
warrant application completed by sheriff's Lt. C.T. Strickland said that
one informant led to the arrest. But, Britt said, there were actually two
informants used.

Strickland testified and acknowledged in a hearing in front of Superior
Court Judge Gregory Weeks in May that he had put only one informant on the
application, when there were two, Britt said. Britt said that Weeks found
that the application for the warrant contained material misrepresentations
of fact, which made any evidence seized in the case unusable.

"Without that evidence, there is no case to try," Britt said. "He testified
in court that he combined information from two individuals to make it
appear as one."

Strickland said the two informants were Logan's girlfriend and one of her
friends.

"The information we had was from two individuals, but we were trying to
conceal the girlfriend's indentity because she was fearing for her life,"
Strickland said.

Sheriff's Glenn Maynor would not comment.