
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 20, 1990                   TAG: 9007200371
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Leslie Taylor
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DRUG CASE AGAINST FORMER SHERIFF'S SERGEANT DISMISSED

U.S. Magistrate Glen Conrad has dismissed the case of a former sergeant in the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department who this month completed a one-year term of probation for distributing marijuana.

In an order filed in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Conrad ordered that Susan E. Graham's case be dismissed and stricken from the active docket of the court.

Graham was arrested in April 1989 with about 20 other people following a yearlong undercover investigation of drug dealing in Montgomery County. She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of giving away less than an ounce of marijuana in 1988 at her Blacksburg apartment.

Last year, Conrad placed Graham on probation for a year and fined her $500.

A federal law intended for first-time offenders charged with relatively minor drug offenses enabled Conrad to dismiss Graham's case.

Graham, 32, had faced a maximum punishment of two years in jail, but Conrad said at her sentencing last year that the loss of her job and the embarrassment brought by the charges were enough punishment.

Graham, who during her nine years with the Sheriff's Department worked as a shift supervisor in the Montgomery County Jail, was fired shortly after the charges were filed.

by CNB