DRUG ARREST STARTED LONG ORDEAL FOR LEXINGTON MAN

PETERSBURG, Va. - Former Lexington resident Joe Edward Hedgepeth says he
feels for anyone inside or bound for prison - even the Davidson County
narcotics officers who, he contends, wrongfully sent him to the Federal
Correctional Institution at Petersburg.

"I know what it did to my wife," said Hedgepeth, 44. "I know what it did to
my kids. I know what it did to my family.

"Their wives and kids are going through the same devastation that my family
went through."

In the past six months, federal drug conspiracy charges against five area
law enforcement officers and five civilians have led to the dismissal of
state charges or sentences against more than 30 criminal defendants.

Hedgepeth appears to be the first federal prison inmate released.

He doesn't claim to be totally innocent, and there are some things about
his experience he will not discuss. Nevertheless, his story helps
illustrate how the officers altered one defendant's life and raises
concerns about the criminal justice system.

Hedgepeth, a Native American from northeastern North Carolina, has led far
from a trouble-free life. He finished just eight years of school, moved at
about age 20 to Davidson County, worked as a freight checker on a local
trucking company dock and fathered five children.

Between 1989 and 1992, he collected convictions for driving under the
influence of alcohol, assault on a female and possession of crack cocaine.
Lexington Police Detective Coy Stewart Jr., who arrested him on the crack
charge at 12:45 one Saturday morning as Hedgepeth cruised one of the city's
drug neighborhoods, recalls a young man willing to work hard but held back
by a problem with substance abuse.

Hedgepeth credits encouraging words from Stewart at the time with inspiring
him to get sober. But eight years later, he said, out of work because of a
serious car accident and struggling with family financial problems, he
drove a friend's motorcycle over to Thomasville on a Sunday afternoon to
buy drugs.

Hedgepeth, then living on Fairview Drive in Lexington, said the sale
started with a telephone call from Marco Aurelio Acosta-Soza, a Lexington
resident from Mexico who offered powdered cocaine. The two met on April 9,
2000, at a gasoline station on South Randolph Street in the Chair City,
went to another nearby station, then drove south a short distance on
Highway 109 toward Denton, Hedgepeth said.

After they stopped beside the highway, he said, Acosta-Soza handed him a
wrapped package that was supposed to contain an ounce and a half of
powdered cocaine but that Hedgepeth could not see inside. No money changed
hands because Acosta-Soza was "fronting" him the drugs, he said. After
selling them, he expected to pay Acosta-Soza about $1,400 and make $400 to
$600 in profit.

"The little bit of drug dealing I did was on that scale," Hedgepeth said.
"It wasn't any every day, every week kind of thing. I did just a minute
amount of drug selling - just enough to survive . I wasn't one of those
people who sold drugs for a career."

After the exchange, Acosta-Soza headed further south on Highway 109 and
Hedgepeth turned back north toward Thomasville. But when he passed in front
of Kmart, a half-dozen sheriff's deputies converged on him in marked and
unmarked cars, slammed him down on the pavement and arrested him, he said.
Hedgepeth recalls two guns being jabbed into his head and neck, Lt. Doug
Westmoreland of the sheriff's office narcotics unit screaming obscenities
into his ear and First Lt. Scott Woodall riding away with the motorcycle
and his watch.

Other officers participating, according to sheriff's office reports, were
Sgts. Todd Kates and Jeff Medlin of the narcotics office and Lt. Danny
Owens and Deputy Marvin Potter of other sheriff's office units.

The officers took Hedgepeth back to the courthouse in Lexington for
interviewing, with Westmoreland asking the questions and Sgt. Billy Rankin
preparing the paperwork, Hedgepeth said. At one point during the
approximately 45-minute session, Sheriff Gerald Hege poked his head in the
door and Westmoreland introduced him to the sheriff, Hedgepeth said. He
recalls Hege telling him something to the effect that he was in way over
his head and facing a long time in prison.

The officers took Hedgepeth before Magistrate Billy Williams, who,
according to Hedgepeth, reported receiving phone calls from Clerk of Court
Brian Shipwash and an unnamed judge urging him to set a high bond.
Hedgepeth's wife, Kimberly, said Shipwash told her he had gotten a call at
home that afternoon asking for the high bond. In an interview, Shipwash
said he did not remember the specific call but added that it is not unusual
for law enforcement officers to contact him and make such requests. He
stressed that the magistrate makes bond decisions and that whatever he says
as clerk is just a recommendation.

A note in District Attorney Garry Frank's file on the case indicated that
Rankin told prosecutors a high bond was needed because of a risk that
Hedgepeth, despite his local ties, might flee the jurisdiction.

Williams, who refused to talk with a reporter, set a $500,000 secured bond
- - much higher than Hedgepeth expected for the amount of drugs involved. "I
knew at that moment that something was mighty bad wrong," Hedgepeth said.

He said his fears were confirmed a couple of days later when Leigh Foltz,
his court-appointed lawyer, told him he was being accused not of possession
of 1.5 ounces of powdered cocaine but of possession of nearly 150 grams of
crack - an amount 3.5 times larger and a type of cocaine subject to longer
sentences in the federal court system.

"I went ballistic, man," Hedgepeth said.

The arrest warrants charged Hedgepeth specifically with possession and
transportation of more than 28 grams and less than 200 grams "of cocaine,"
as well as keeping and maintaining a vehicle - his friend's motorcycle -
for keeping and selling cocaine.

Foltz and Hedgepeth made several unsuccessful efforts to convince district
court judges to reduce Hedgepeth's bond. Hedgepeth recalls prosecutors
saying in court that county investigators hoped to "take the case federal"
- - to obtain federal indictments since the federal government has the
authority to impose tougher penalties than the state. The bond kept
Hedgepeth in the Davidson County Detention Center for nine months - until
his sentence to federal prison. Hedgepeth thinks that was a deliberate
strategy by county narcotics officers to hurt his ability to prepare a
court defense and to look into why Acosta-Soza set him up. It helped them
claim a significant arrest while also keeping their own illegal drug sales
going, he suggests.

"If I had made bond, I could have made a lot of problems for them," said
Hedgepeth. "So they had to get rid of me for a long time. That's my belief."

Set up as drug kingpin?

Eight days before Hedgepeth's arrest, warrants obtained by Kates, Woodall
and Westmoreland had charged Acosta-Soza with possession, manufacture and
transportation of the same amount of cocaine. A Davidson County grand jury
later indicted Acosta-Soza, but the district attorney's office eventually
dismissed the charges because, according to court documents, Acosta-Soza
could not be located for trial. One form, signed by a Lexington police
officer, indicated that Acosta-Soza had moved to California.

Arrest reports for Hedgepeth refer to an unnamed female that was on the
motorcycle with him. Hedgepeth, saying other individuals need not go
through the same ordeal he has, will not discuss her. No one else appears
to have been charged in connection with the incident.

He said he never regained his wallet or the $400-$500 it contained, his
watch, his address book, his pager, or the leather jacket, vest, chaps and
bandana he was wearing that day. He said the sheriff's office told a
relative it sold his friend's motorcycle several weeks after his arrest.
Also in his supplemental filing, Hedgepeth argued that authorities violated
his Eighth Amendment right to be free from excess bail, did not always use
the term "crack cocaine" in their charges and sometimes were unhelpful in
his efforts to obtain public records documenting his case.

Hedgepeth further noted that his case reflected the same pattern of conduct
to which Woodall, Westmoreland and Rankin later pleaded guilty.

"As it now turns out, I sit in prison, have been convinced to plead guilty,
when the record is clear . and we now have proff (sic) that those who
worked to have me indicted, themselves, were in the process of violation
the law and set me up as a decoy, to protect their illegal activities," he
concluded.

When the U.S. Attorney's Office responded to Hedgepeth's motion, it did
something not often seen in criminal cases: It agreed that his request for
relief should be granted.

A free man, two years later

In a four-page filing, U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner and First Assistant
U.S. Attorney Benjamin H. White Jr. wrote that the government relied
heavily on investigation reports by Woodall and Westmoreland as the factual
basis for the Hedgepeth's guilty plea. They wrote that Hedgepeth's lawyer
also relied heavily on the same reports in advising Hedgepeth to plead guilty.

"Because of evidence in the investigation which led to the indictment of
officers Woodall, Westmoreland and others ., matters presented by the
petitioner herein and information in the record itself, the government can
no longer vouch for the truthfulness of the information that led to the
defendant's plea of guilty and to the acceptance of that plea by this
court," Wagoner and White wrote.

They wrote that they could no longer dispute Hedgepeth's argument that, if
anything, he was guilty just of attempting to obtain an amount of powdered
cocaine.

"Where a mistake has occurred that is of constitutional magnitude or error
exists impugning the fundamental fairness, integrity or public reputation
of the judicial proceeding, a conviction resulting therefrom cannot stand,"
they said.

Hedgepeth received a copy of the federal response at FCI Petersburg during
late mail call on Friday evening, March 15.

"When I read the paper, I just started hollering and shouting and praising
God," he said. "My cellmate thought I had lost my mind."

Five days later, Judge Osteen signed the order vacating Hedgepeth's
sentence and dismissing the indictment against him. After 23 months behind
bars, Hedgepeth was a free man. His wife took the day off work, drove to
the prison and picked him up for a joyful reunion.

Two months later, Hedgepeth remains in the Petersburg area, living with
Kimberly and her 20-year-old son, spending time with a 10-year-old son he
had rarely seen before his arrest, doing construction work and trying to
figure out what to do with the life he's been given back.

As a former prison inmate, he's worried about being able to find other
kinds of jobs. He said he wants to return to school and obtain a college
degree.

He feels he has lost two years of his life. While he was behind bars, an
uncle, two cousins and two good friends died. Two of his daughters got
married. His third grandchild was born.

But one of the religious miracles about his release, he said, is that he
feels no personal anger toward the officers who arrested him. He said he'd
like to visit them in jail to tell them how essential Christianity will be
to their ability to cope with prison.

But fearing that the past might repeat itself, he said, he does not plan to
move back to Davidson County - unless a divine force directs him to return.

"I know there's a calling in my life, but what the Lord's going to have me
do, I don't know," he said. "I know one thing: I do want to go back to the
prisons and share my experience and share the good news of Jesus Christ."

Hedgepeth's experience has left him with strong concerns about the legal
system. He contends the pendulum has swung too far in a nation frightened
by drugs and determined to be tough on criminals.

New sentencing structures eliminating the possibility of parole essentially
force defendants to plead guilty to acts they didn't commit in order to
escape spending the rest of their lives in prison, Hedgepeth said.

In addition, the new sentencing system more strongly than ever encourages
defendants to give investigators and prosecutors the names of other people,
even innocent ones, to reduce their own sentences, he said.

Defendants who have been discredited by saying they are drug dealers
suddenly become credible witnesses against others.

"They've given narcotics agents and DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration) agents so much power, they can do anything they want to
secure a conviction," Hedgepeth said.

Lots of prisoners in FCI Petersburg are suffering now because of those
problems, he said.

"There's many a man who said, 'Joe, I'm not innocent, but I'm not guilty of
all that.'"