Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130302
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DRUG SELLER FACES 45-YEAR TERM
A Roanoke jury on Tuesday recommended a 45-year prison sentence for a man who sold three small pieces of crack cocaine to an undercover police officer.Anthony Q. McCullough received the sentence after a two-day trial in Roanoke Circuit Court.
Testimony showed that McCullough sold crack worth $25 to the undercover officer on two occasions, in August and September, during streetside transactions on Melrose Avenue Northwest.
The jury set a sentence of 15 years for the first offense and 30 years for the second. McCullough also was fined $35,000.
Although both drug deals were secretly videotaped, McCullough did not appear on videotapes that were shown to the jury.
However, Regional Drug Prosecutor Melvin Hill said McCullough's voice was captured on the tapes, and that was enough to convince the jury of his involvement.
McCullough was one of more than 70 people charged in October after an undercover police officer spent three months posing as a regular customer of the city's open-air crack markets. He was the first person indicted in the operation to challenge the charges in a jury trial.
Most of the people charged in the operation have pleaded guilty, Hill said.
Jury trials involving crack are rare in Roanoke, largely because of stiff sentences like the one handed down Tuesday.
Most first-time offenders who plead guilty to dealing crack are sentenced by judges to terms of about three to five years. Repeat offenders are treated more harshly by judges, but the toughest sentences by far have come from juries.
McCullough will be formally sentenced later by a judge. His attorney may ask then that the jury's recommended punishment be reduced.
He had faced a maximum sentence of 80 years in prison.