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

DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993                   TAG: 9312040261
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: associated press
DATELINE: GATE CITY                                LENGTH: Short

DRUG SUSPECT DENIES DOING HARM TO WOMEN IN HIS BONDAGE PICTURES

James Harvey Lewis III said he took sexually explicit photographs of girlfriends and acquaintances in bondage, but he denied statements by police that two of them may have been killed.

"Twice in my life I've slapped a girl, and both deserved it at the time," Lewis said from his Scott County jail cell. "But I apologized both times; those apologies were accepted. There's not been another single instance in my life when I've ever mistreated a woman."

Defense attorney James Michael Shull said police are ruining Lewis' chance for a fair trial on drug charges by saying publicly that two of the women may have been dead when the pictures were taken.

Lewis is accused of growing 3,000 marijuana plants, but no charges have been filed in connection with the sexually explicit photos found during a drug raid of his farm in 1992.

by CNB