Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007130363
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
An attorney for James Daniel Clark asked U.S. District Judge James Turk at a probation violation hearing in Roanoke to postpone the hearing because he'd found Clark emotionally incapable of assisting in his own defense.
"We'd better have him examined to determine whether he is competent to proceed," Turk said before ordering Clark to the federal penitentiary in Butner, N.C.
Clark, 36, and Burke W. May were convicted in 1988 of plotting to sell machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and bombs to drug dealers in Miami and Washington, D.C.
The two were placed on probation. Conditions for Clark's probation initially included submitting to mental health treatment, remaining employed, submitting to regular urinalysis and disassociating himself from May.
At a March probation violation hearing, the court ordered that Clark continue on probation as originally ordered, but that conditions be added to disallow him from being self-employed without approval of the U.S. Probation Office and to require him to submit to mental health treatment and take any medication he was directed by his psychiatrist.
According to court records, "Clark's adjustment to probation has been poor, if not contemptuous."
In April, according to court records, an official complaint was filed with the Montgomery County Child Protection Services in Christiansburg that alleged Clark had sexually abused a 7-year-old girl. After conducting an investigation, officials concluded that they were convinced Clark had committed sexual battery on the girl, according to court records.
Clark was arrested and jailed July 3, in part for not informing the court of the investigation. He has not been charged with sexual assault.
Clark also appeared before Turk in September for consideration of probation revocation after urine tests showed Clark used marijuana on at least three occasions. Clark denied using marijuana, saying that his own drug tests refuted those taken by the government.
Clark claimed that the only reason he sold illegal guns was to win the trust of the drug underworld in his private war on drugs.
In May, a Montgomery County Circuit Court jury found Clark and May guilty of reckless endangerment, assault and battery and maliciously inflicting emotional distress upon Steve Jewel, an Elliston man who had filed a lawsuit to collect damages.
The suit stemmed from a 1986 shootout over a Montgomery County property dispute in which Jewel was shot in the arm, leg and lower abdomen. Clark and May were hired by a husband and wife as security guards to protect against vandalism they believed was being done by a family member.
Clark and May have been linked to escapades that have included the gun-running deal, the shootout and private investigations into the disappearance of a Virginia Tech student and the slaying of Gene McPherson, the brother of Craig County Sheriff Billy McPherson.
by CNB