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

DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993                   TAG: 9311160096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUGAR, SHED, 36 POTS - BUT NOBODY HOME AT STILL

In the cat-and-mouse game of moonshining, rule No. 1 is: Don't get caught at the distillery.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott made a case Monday that Paul Andrew Henson left quite a few paw prints at a record 36-pot still raided in Pittsylvania County in January.

Mott submitted as evidence Henson's name on an order for building materials used to construct a 40-foot-by-90-foot shed to hide the huge still. He pointed to Henson's electricity bill, which increased fivefold after the distillery began cooking up moonshine in December.

And Mott noted that a truck registered to Henson was found loaded with empty sugar bags. Sugar is one of the main ingredients of moonshine.

"One of the things I'm going to alert you to," Mott told the jury, "you're not going to hear any witness say, `I saw Andy Henson at the still site,' or, `I saw Michael J. Rigney at the still site.' "

Henson, 30, and Rigney, 22, are charged with illegal possession of distillery equipment and producing distilled spirits without a license. Henson, who lived on the Smith Mountain Lake property where the still was found, is also charged with intent to defraud the federal government of taxes and with distilling spirits without having filed a license.

The men could be fined $250,000 and spend five years in prison for each count. Their trial is scheduled to conclude today.

The 36-pot still is believed to be the largest ever raided in Virginia. To prime all 36 pots to make whiskey took 25,000 pounds of sugar. All the pots were full when authorities raided it in early January.

Federal and state taxes on a gallon of liquor total about $20; Mott estimated that if the still had been run at full capacity for a year, the government would have been defrauded of $4 million.

Henson and Rigney deny any connection to the massive operation - even though Rigney's fingerprint was found on a proofing barrel in the distillery shed, and authorities found a recipe for making moonshine in the house Henson rented.

During the morning's testimony, R.C. Toney, an Alcoholic Beverage Control special agent, described in detail the ingredients and recipe for making moonshine.

Judge James Turk jumped in, asking Toney specific questions about homemade whiskey. "If you wanted to make a little apple brandy," Turk asked, "could you just substitute apples for the grain?" The answer: yes.

Toney said one cycle of the 36-pot still could produce 3,600 gallons of illegal whiskey, which would sell at $10 a gallon wholesale, or $36,000, and would bring twice that on the retail market.

An 18-year veteran of fighting moonshine operations, Toney said the distillery could run through a cycle in seven days during the summer and 10 days during the winter.

"The warmer it is, the quicker it'll ferment," he said. "It's like making bread - if you keep your dough in a warm spot, it rises faster."

Doug Jennings, an ABC chemist, said an analysis of the alcohol from the still showed it to be 83.1 proof, or about 42 percent alcohol. Jennings said the whiskey had a "bouquet that was new and raw."

"The components were of an illegal nature," he said. "In other words: not bourbon, not blended whiskey, not Scotch. It was moonshine."

Jay Calhoun, an ABC special agent who was a Pittsylvania County deputy last year, said the pungent odor first called attention to the still. On Dec. 22, someone called Calhoun with a tip of a "sweet, noticeable smell" coming from the property Henson rented.

ABC agents, Danville police and Pittsylvania County sheriff's deputies staked out the distillery from Dec. 26 through Jan. 6. Calhoun said they never got close enough to see anyone.

The closest they came to catching anyone was Dec. 27. On that afternoon, Calhoun said, they saw steam rising from four of the 36 pots and heard propane-fired burners hissing, heating the mash.

As the officers came down the wooded hillside to raid the still, the burners shut off, and a van drove away. They decided not to stop the van and followed it to Rigney's mother's house.

Three months later, the van was found at another distillery, where Rigney was one of three men arrested.

But with Calhoun and other authorities watching from late December until Jan. 6, no one returned to the first distillery.

Henson surrendered to authorities several weeks later.