Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 8, 1990 TAG: 9006080174
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Facing up to 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine on a charge of selling or distributing cocaine, Wilson accepted the terms of a plea agreement Thursday that offered him a two-year prison term and a $500 fine.
Instead of fighting the charge - as he and his attorney, Dutton Olinger of Blacksburg, were prepared to do - Wilson pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Circuit Court.
And because his sentence will be served at the same time as a two-year sentence on a previous federal cocaine-selling conviction, he will not serve any additional time.
"You're walking out of here scot-free, except for the $500 fine," Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore told him.
Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith offered the plea agreement about an hour before the scheduled trial. Wilson had rejected a previous offer of a three-year prison sentence.
Wilson was offered such a deal because Devore had ruled in January that much of the commonwealth's evidence could not be used.
Devore said the search warrant sheriff's deputies had when they found cocaine in Wilson's Foxridge apartment in March 1989 was not legal because a magistrate was near the scene of the arrest that night.
In a Jan. 12 letter, Devore wrote: "The issuing magistrate in this matter was certainly not a neutral or detached judicial officer. He was nothing more than a `rubber stamp' for the sheriff."
Wilson was arrested after deputies burst into his apartment and found three bags of cocaine on a table, according to testimony in previous hearings.
Earlier that night, an informant working for the Sheriff's Department went to Wilson's apartment and bought $1,700 worth of cocaine.
That purchase gave District Magistrate Robert Griffith enough cause to sign a search warrant allowing deputies to search Wilson's apartment.
But Griffith was sitting in a police cruiser in a parking lot near Wilson's apartment. And since magistrates are supposed to be "neutral and detached," Devore ruled that Griffith was too close to the scene.
After Devore's ruling, Olinger moved that the charge be dropped. That motion was denied, but because Keith was not allowed to use the seized cocaine as evidence, he settled for the guilty plea and a two-year sentence and fine.
by CNB