Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 9, 1993 TAG: 9303090177
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHATHAM LENGTH: Medium
GRAND JURY GETS GIANT-STILL CASE
By any standards, it was an awfully big still. The largest illegal whiskey operation ever discovered in Virginia.When Pittsylvania County and Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control authorities raided it Jan. 6, they found all the ingredients needed to make moonshine: 24 pounds of yeast, 900 pounds of meal, 100 pounds of sugar.
But most of the ingredients already had been used. They found 28,800 gallons of fermenting mash, abandoned and slowly turning rancid in the 36,800-gallon pots.
Monday morning, the only man yet held accountable for the moonshine operation was brought to Pittsylvania County General District Court on a charge of aiding and abetting the illegal manufacturing of whiskey.
Judge William Alexander found enough to back up that charge against Paul A. Henson to forward it to a grand jury.
If convicted of that felony, Henson, 29, could be sent to prison for five years.
Henson's attorney, Glenn Berger, said the state's case against his client is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.
Henson owns neither the house nor the property on which the still was found, Berger said.
"At most, they've shown he lived in a house that was several hundred yards from a distillery."
But after raiding the still and the house, agents found evidence that Henson had been there.
In a house 150 yards from the still they found roofing company receipts in Henson's name. They found pictures of Henson.
Between the house and the still, they found a farm truck that had been registered to Henson. In the back of it were empty sugar bags.
Pittsylvania County investigator Jay Calhoun testified they even found, in a blue notebook, a sketch of the 80-foot-by-45-foot building that covered the still.
The agents, in fact, found everything but Henson. The door to the house was unlocked when the agents searched it.
"The door being left open like that led me to believe the people just got out of there," Calhoun said.
Receipts from the purchase of lumber and other materials that could have been used to build the shed were dated late October and early November. That could back up the Pittsylvania County Sheriff's Department's claims that the still was in operation only a few weeks.
Henson turned himself in weeks after the raid, saying he had been out of town for a while.
Neither of the agents who testified Monday said they could identify Henson as one of two or three people they saw going in and out of the still. They had it under surveillance from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6.
But the last time they saw anyone going into the shed was Dec. 29, Calhoun said. They finally raided the still Jan. 6.
"We felt at that time someone had seen us there," Calhoun said.