HEGE: CHARGES BEING REVIEWED

Davidson County Sheriff Gerald Hege acknowledged this morning that a
federal indictment of three deputies throws into doubt 91 pending charges
against 35 people.

Those are all the active cases that the indicted deputies worked on.

At a 9 a.m. press conference this morning, Hege responded to allegations
contained in 35-page search warrant released by federal prosecutors Friday.

"Until yesterday afternoon, I had not received or read the affidavit"
detailing the investigation against his men, Hege said.

Hege held up a list of all the pending cases the indicted deputies worked
on, and he addressed accusations by a television reporter that he was
hiding out.

"I have never hid from anybody,"he said. He added that he had never refused
a phone call from the television reporter, and that if he wasn't at the
Sheriff's Office, it was because he was working on a case.

He said the deputies under his command came under scrutiny when an officer
in Thomasville was arrested and implicated Lt. David Woodall and Sgt.
Douglas Westmoreland.

When Hege called the two men in to talk with them, they said that they told
him that they had already talked to the investigating agents and there was
nothing to worry about.

"That was the last words out of their mouths: 'We're not worried about it,'
" Hege said.

He said he tried to contact an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation
to talk to him about it. "I figured if something was going on, the agent
would have contacted me," he said. He learned later that the agent had been
transferred to another county.

Hege also said that Woodall had misled him about a number of cases,
including the "Kepley Situation."

Wyatt Nathan Kepley, the son of County Commissioner Billy Joe Kepley, was
one of two non-law enforcement people indicted along with Hege's men and a
sergeant in the Archdale Police Department.

Kepley is a body builder, and Hege said that he had gotten a call about him
using drugs.

"(The caller) suspected that he may have been on some kind of drugs,"said
Hege, who called in Woodall to work on the case.

When Hege got another call about Kepley, Woodall said it was under control.

Hege suggested that they send an officer to Romania to follow Kepley on a
trip to buy body building equipment, which Hege thought was a front for
buying illegal anabolic steroids.

Woodall said the case was with the Davidson County District Attorney and
"they're going to get him."

"He knew how to catch people at it, therefore he knew how to avoid it,"Hege
said.

He said that if anyone ever feels like they are being duped by an officer,
they should contact the agency or if they didn't want to do that, contact
the State Bureau of Investigation.

Hege said deputies had found $22,000 to go along with the other evidence
they have against Woodall, Westmoreland and Davidson Sgt. William Monroe
Rankin. He said investigators found the money at a friend's house.

Hege said it will be a slow process to put his office back together.

"It's happened in the FBI,"he said. "You have to do it just like this. You
have to get out in front of the media ... You've just got to continue on."

When a reporter asked him about how this could have happened in his
department, Hege replied: "You can only be in one room at one time."

If there was a raid or search and an officer is alone in a room when he
finds $10,000 under a bed, he could put it in his shirt and none of the
other officers would know.

In one change, Hege said a top supervisor will accompany deputies on all of
the searches and raids. The supervisors that will be going out are Maj.
Danny Owens, Maj. B. Glisson, Capt. J. Shoaf, Capt. Chris Coble and Hege.

"I'm going to go out and do the drug stuff,"he said. "I did it for six
years. I think that when Ileft it is when it went wrong."

He added that he hopes he will not have to do it forever.

This will cut down on deputies making their own search warrants. When a
deputy gets a search warrant, Hege said that he is supposed to be notified.

"You can't be with everybody all the time," he said.

"We're trying to overcome a very bad situation,"he added. "What we can do
is get out there and do our job."

He added that a key to cracking down on the problem is paperwork.

Hege said that all of his deputies have been tested for drugs within the
past eight months. It depends on the type of steroid as to whether or not
it shows up on the results.

"You have to trust someone, and the community has to trust us,"Hege said.
"It comes down to trust unless you're actually on the scene."