SIMMS PLEADS GUILTY IN HIRING OF ARSONIST

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

DATE: TUESDAY, February 25, 1992                   TAG: 9202250095
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SIMMS PLEADS GUILTY IN HIRING OF ARSONIST
Rather than defend himself for a second time before a Roanoke federal court jury, a Henry County paving contractor pleaded guilty Monday to hiring a former prison buddy to burn a house to keep a black family from moving in.
In a plea agreement with prosecutors, John Clifford Simms pleaded guilty to three of five charges against him in exchange for a sentence of no more than five years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge James Turk will sentence Simms on two counts of arson and one count of conspiracy after a background report is completed. Simms will remain free on bond until he is sentenced, according to the agreement.
A jury convicted Simms in October of two counts of moonshine possession and one of firearms possession. But it deadlocked on charges that he hired David Fleming Montgomery to burn the Franklin County house of Keith and Regina Craighead to keep them from moving into his neighborhood.
Montgomery pleaded guilty in July to burning the small, white frame house - once on Oct. 26 and again on Oct. 31 - but testified at Simms' trial that he acted alone and without any encouragement or payment from Simms. Montgomery testified that he told friends Simms paid him $500 to burn the house just to impress them.
Simms portrayed himself in testimony last fall as a simple country boy with a struggling paving business and an absence of racial prejudice.
The Franklin County native said he had righted himself from a shady past that included bootlegging and time served in prison on a first-degree murder conviction. It was at the Powhatan Correctional Center, where they shared a cell block 15 years ago, that Simms and Montgomery met.
Simms and his son, John Jr., founded J&J Paving several years ago in the Henry County community of Ridgeway. In 1988, Simms bought property in the Penhook section of eastern Franklin County and built a home for his family. Testimony at the trial revealed that Simms had assets of $1.2 million.
Bill Davis, lead attorney for Simms' defense team, said after the first trial that defense at a return trial would be "essentially the same."
But last week prosecutors revealed a new piece of evidence in the case: a transcript of a Dec. 5 telephone conversation between Montgomery and Simms.
The taped telephone conversation - placed by Montgomery from the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa. - indicated that Simms was sending money to Montgomery through a third person.
In the conversation, Simms and Montgomery also discussed trial strategy and Montgomery's testimony at Simms' upcoming trial.
Simms' attorneys objected to allowing the conversation, which was taped as a routine matter at the federal prison, as evidence. But Deborah Sines, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, successfully argued that the conversation was admissible.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant said Monday that the plea agreement reduces by five years the sentence Simms would receive if he were sentenced according to federal sentencing guidelines.
Davis said Simms and his attorneys had "agonized over the decision whether to enter a plea or not." He said his client would give a complete statement at his sentencing.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB