Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140152
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN AND DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Majid Khoshghad was being held on $100,000 bond in the Roanoke County Jail late Tuesday. He was arrested at his Rocky Mount home earlier in the day, where a small amount of marijuana was found, according to police.
Law enforcement agents from three jurisdictions declined to discuss the investigation. Roanoke police would not comment. Roanoke County investigators did not return phone calls.
But a search warrant affidavit filed in Roanoke County Circuit Court by the county's top vice officer spelled out a regional investigation that began with a tip from an informant who was facing drug charges.
The informant told police about a marijuana distribution operation headed by someone he knew only as "The Phototron Man," who was the president of a local flower club.
The affidavit shows that vice officers were targeting the residence of Victor Layman, president of the Iris Society in Roanoke. The affidavit alleges that he supplied 10 pounds of marijuana per month to at least one customer for the past 31/2 years. It is possible for a dealer to make $1,000 profit on a pound of marijuana, depending on its quality.
Layman, who started and ran the Academy of Real Estate in Roanoke, had not been charged late Tuesday. He did not return a message left on the answering machine at his home Tuesday night.
The Academy of Real Estate, which he sold in June 1991, accredits real estate agents.
In late April, Roanoke County vice officers received an anonymous tip that named Layman as having five or six people growing marijuana for him, according to the affidavit.
Through electronic surveillance, officers traced numerous telephone calls between Layman's McVitty Road home and Khoshghad's home at 8181 Poor Mountain Road. Police believe Khoshghad grew marijuana at the Poor Mountain Road home and lived in Rocky Mount, according to the affidavit.
Recently, drug investigators interviewed two other individuals who named Layman as their drug source and revealed that the drop-off and pickup point for the marijuana was a storage bin at Starkey Road Self Storage.
One of those individuals also provided police a taped conversation in which the other individual said ''the money man'' of the operation wanted the names of narcotics officers, apparently so he "could make arrangements to physically harm anyone involved in the investigation," the affidavit said.
by CNB