Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 17, 1993 TAG: 9311170165
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Henson, 30, faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million - about the minimum value of the moonshine that Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott said the mammoth still could have produced in one year.
Henson denied building or operating the still, which was discovered in Pittsylvania County last Christmas Eve about 100 yards from a house he rented at Smith Mountain Lake. When authorities raided it Jan. 6 they found 36 800-gallon casks filled with undistilled corn mash, a 40-foot-by-90-foot shed built to conceal the distillery, and one gallon of moonshine.
Henson was not around.
"I can't emphasize too much the scale of this operation," Mott told the U.S. District Court jury in Roanoke. "This was the largest distillery by half ever found in the state of Virginia; you can use your common sense and say, `If I lived in that house, would I know if somebody was conducting an illegal still operation there?' "
Previously, the largest illegal moonshine operation discovered in Virginia was a 24-pot distillery found in 1972 in the Endicott section of Franklin County.
Henson was convicted of four charges related to operating the still, including distilling spirits without a license and intent to defraud the government of taxes.
Co-defendant Michael J. Rigney, 22, was found not guilty of two charges: illegal possession of distillery equipment and producing liquor without a license.
The jury found sufficient a slew of circumstantial evidence that Henson ran the still: his handprint on a bag of yeast and two parts of the distillery, a fivefold jump in his electric bill once the still started operating, empty bags of sugar in the back of his truck.
Glenn Berger, Henson's attorney, denied that the evidence added up to Henson's guilt. Henson didn't testify, nor did Berger put forth a defense. Henson declined to comment after his conviction.
Mott admitted he had little evidence to convict Rigney - except a palm print on part of the distillery. He said Rigney was "basically a still hand," a man hired to stir the mash and do the other hard labor required to make whiskey.
Though the mention of moonshining often produces snickering, Mott cautioned the jury to take the case seriously.
"This isn't some honorable folk art being carried on by Andy Henson and Michael Rigney," Mott said. "This is business and this is big business. It's millions of dollars of fraud.
"Andy Henson is no Snuffy Smith stealing chickens to support Aunt Loweezy and cousin Jughaid," Mott said, speaking of the comic strip about Appalachian mountain people.
Mott estimated the 28,800-gallon distillery could have produced from $1.1 million to $5.6 million worth of illegal whiskey in one year and evaded $2 million to $4.5 million in federal and state taxes.
But the still alone did not land Henson's case in federal court. Federal agencies, for the most part, got away from trying moonshine cases when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stopped being the primary pursuer of bootleggers.
The case found itself in federal hands in July, after the U.S. attorney's office said it linked Henson to a marijuana distribution operation. Henson also faces six federal drug and firearms charges in connection with what authorities allege was a marijuana pipeline from Texas to Southside Virginia.
Henson and nine others will be tried on those charges early next year. Authorities have alleged the drug ring used cash from gambling houses and moonshine operations to buy drugs - about $7 million in marijuana from 1989 to 1993 - and bring them into Pittsylvania and Henry counties.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***