Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260154
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NEELY JURY DELIBERATING
A federal court jury in Roanoke is to continue deliberations today to decide if Keith Neely is just a cocaine addict, or a corrupt attorney who used his Christiansburg law practice to organize drug smuggling.The jury deliberated for an hour and a half Thursday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser sent them home and told them to come back today to get a fresh start.
They have sat through a tedious two-week trial in which they heard from more then two dozen witnesses and were given more than 110 documents.
But defense attorney Tom Blaylock conceded Thursday that the key is whether the jury believes Neely.
During testimony Wednesday, Neely readily admitted he is an alcoholic and a cocaine abuser, but he denied any involvement in drug dealing or money laundering. He said that if some of his friends, associates and fellow drug users were drug dealers, he was too blind or too drugged out to know it.
Neely, 43, contended that he is the innocent victim of a government effort to get him. He accused Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Peters, the lead prosecutor in the case, of having threatened to get him because of the way he defended some of his clients, many of whom were drug dealers.
His testimony was flatly disputed by several of his former friends and business associates who are admitted or convicted drug dealers. They testified that Neely used his office to provide a legal cover for drug deals during the late 1980s and to arrange ways to conceal drug profits. He was accused of investing at least $49,000 in drug profits in a Claytor Lake land deal and to have put other money in a Jaguar sports car.
In addition, government witnesses testified that Neely tried to help arrange for a marijuana farm in a national forest.
In closing arguments Thursday, Marvin Miller, one of Neely's two attorneys, said the government's key witnesses are all liars and admitted drug dealers. Miller, who wears a lapel pin promoting the legalization of marijuana for medical treatment, said the government's witnesses were willing to say anything in exchange for reduced sentences or immunity.
Neely is not a Boy Scout, but he's not a drug dealer, either, Miller told the jury.
Peters says the only thing she is out to get Neely for is being a drug dealer who hid his actions in his law practice.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rich Lloret told the jury that the case is a tragedy in the classic sense - "A fall from grace by a gifted man." Neely, he said, "is the man in the middle" of a ring of drug buyers and suppliers. And, Lloret said, Neely brought himself down "because of his own greed" for money.