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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994                   TAG: 9410210048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

HEAD OF BUSY CRACK HOUSE IS SENTENCED

It was not just the 100-some rocks of crack cocaine they found. Not just the six packages of "Black Death" heroin, the weighing scales, or the $6,000 in cash - all seized from the Essex Avenue Northwest house.

It was the steady stream of customers - unaware of the bust in progress - who kept knocking on the door, looking to make a deal.

And when opportunity knocks ...

Police get ideas. Vice detectives found a bar of soap in the house and cut it into small pieces, resembling rocks of crack. One detective took off his police jacket and made sure his badge was not showing.

The next time there was a knock on the door, the house was open again for business. After paying $25 for what he thought was crack, the visitor found himself under arrest for attempting to possess cocaine.

"After a while, the living room filled up" with suspects, said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Nagel, "so they had to start telling people to go away."

But that didn't stop the telephone from ringing. "It was a busy house," Nagel said.

So busy that, on Thursday, 39-year-old Sharon M. Huff, the head of the house, was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Nagel estimated that Huff sold at least $220,000 worth of cocaine a year to support her $600-a-day heroin habit. Defense attorney David Bowers pointed out that his client never had been treated for her heroin addiction.

Roanoke Circuit Judge Richard Pattisall found that to be no excuse. "For 20 years, you have had a serious substance-abuse problem," he told Huff. "And for 20 years, you haven't done anything about it."