MAN CHARGED IN THREAT AGAINST CUCCI WITNESS

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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992                   TAG: 9202080089
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
MAN CHARGED IN THREAT AGAINST CUCCI WITNESS
A Greenbrier County, W.Va., man is being held without bond on charges of threatening to kill the government informant whose undercover work led to the cocaine-smuggling conviction of Covington businessman Victor Cucci.
A federal magistrate in Bluefield, W.Va., ordered Davis W. Friedman, 18, locked up Friday pending a hearing Feb. 12.
William Dodge, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in West Virginia, said Friday that Freidman was arrested after he told a Greenbrier County deputy that he was Cucci's friend and was going to kill the informant.
Freidman made the threat after being picked up by the deputy on a drunken driving charge, authorities said.
According to an affidavit signed by DEA agent A.G. Burke, Freidman told the deputy, "Bob Seidman is a dead man. I'll kill him. He's a dead man."
Authorities said Freidman complained that federal drug agents used Seidman to set up Cucci.
Cucci, 39, owner of Cucci's Pizzeria in Covington, was convicted last week of conspiracy to distribute more than four pounds of cocaine from New York to West Virginia.
At his trial Cucci contended he was illegally entrapped by Seidman into committing a crime he would not have done if Seidman hadn't pressured him into it.
Seidman testified that he made the tapes at the direction of federal drug agents who sent him after Cucci. He said he agreed to work as a confidential informant in the hope of getting off with probation from a 20-year drug sentence he faced.
Cucci is scheduled to be sentenced March 30. He faces a possible 40-year term.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB