Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990 TAG: 9005150577
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Police said she had $90,000 worth of crack cocaine stuffed in her panty hose.
The arrest, which was made by city vice officers at about 9:55 p.m., is believed to be the largest crack bust since the highly addictive drug began to show up in Roanoke two years ago.
The girl, who was not identified because of her age, was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, police said today.
A judge in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court ordered today that she be held without bond.
After obtaining information in a lengthy investigation, vice officers were waiting for the juvenile at the airport when she arrived on a USAir flight on a one-way ticket from LaGuardia airport in New York.
After confronting the girl, a female police office took her to a nearby restroom and searched her.
Inside the girl's undergarments, police said they found three large chunks of crack cocaine that weighed about 13 ounces. The drugs were contained in three plastic bags that had been wrapped in a crumpled, brown lunch bag and stuffed into the front of her panty hose.
Although police have seized much larger amounts of powder cocaine in Roanoke, the quantity the girl was allegedly carrying was an "unusally large amount" of crack - a more concentrated form of the drug, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jeff Rudd said.
Rudd said he plans to ask that the 15-year-old be tried as an adult in Circuit Court.
"When you've got that much cocaine involved, it needs to be dealt with as an adult," he said.
The girl appeared in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court for arraignment this morning wearing the same clothes she was arrested in the night before: a loose-fitting, multicolored jacket that extended halfway to her knees and partly concealed a maroon skirt and white panty hose.
The girl sobbed and wiped her eyes with a tissue as Judge Phillip Trompeter inquired about her parents in New York.
"She doesn't know that I'm here," the girl said when asked about her mother.
The girl was returned to a juvenile detention home after the arraignment. A June 5 hearing was scheduled, at which time prosecutors plan to ask that the case be transferred to Circuit Court.
Since crack first arrived in Roanoke, authorities have detected a pattern in which the drug is often smuggled into the city in large amounts and then parceled out for sale on the streets.
Many of the largest drug dealers arrested so far in Operation Caribbean Sunset, a state, local and federal effort to rid the city of crack, have been from places such as New York.
Some of the drug dealers have used teen-agers as "mules," or couriers to transport the drugs in exchange for a cash fee.
by CNB