JUDGE CHANGES MIND ABOUT EVIDENCE IN FULCHER CASE

Michael Fulcher was among 22 people indicted on marijuana smuggling
and money laundering charges.

Evidence that the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration
in Roanoke may have given informant-turned-inmate Michael Fulcher the
impression that he could gather information about a drug ring running
out of a Bland jail can be admitted at Fulcher's new trial, a federal
judge has ruled.

The ruling marks an about-face for Senior U.S. District Judge Jackson
Kiser, who refused to let Fulcher put on evidence during the trial of
Fulcher, his then-wife, Rosanna Sue Nichols, and his mother, Ethel
Fulcher, that the DEA had given them clearance to investigate a drug
ring operating out of Bland Correctional Facility.

The Fulchers were among 22 people - including four guards, nine
inmates and several of the inmate's relatives - indicted in January
on charges that they smuggled marijuana into the prison and laundered
drug money from 1995 to 1997.

At their trial, Fulcher, his mother and his then-wife were convicted
of various charges related to the conspiracy.

Kiser's change of mind stems from a letter DEA agent Don Lincoln sent
him on the eve of the Fulchers' sentencing in 1999. Lincoln, who had
testified during pre-trial testimony for the Fulchers that he had
made it "crystal-clear" that the agency did authorize any undercover
investigation on the family's part, admitted in the letter that
Michael Fulcher could have gotten the mistaken impression that
Lincoln approved of Fulcher's investigation.

Fulcher, who was serving 48 years for a string of robberies in
Bedford County, had a history of working as an informant for Lincoln
during the 1980s in many high-profile drug investigations. He was
blackballed in the 1990s for leaking information, although he
continued to remain in contact and supply information to Lincoln.

After news of Lincoln's letter broke, the Fulchers and Nichols
petitioned the court for a new trial and Kiser granted the motion in
February 2000. The U.S. Attorney's Office appealed Kiser's decision,
but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed it.

Soon after, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed a motion to reinstate
the verdicts, arguing essentially that Lincoln would never have had
the authority to permit Michael Fulcher to do the things he allegedly
did in the course of the investigation, such as selling drugs and
laundering money while he was gathering evidence on other members of
the ring.

But Kiser ruled that the new evidence offered by Lincoln should be
admissible at the new trial because it supported Fulcher's position
that he never actually sold drugs at the jail. Kiser also ruled that
Fulcher's history of helping Lincoln on other investigations would be
pertinent at his new trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott, who prosecuted the case, could not
be reached for comment.