Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501160044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After hearing four days of evidence, a U.S. District Court jury deliberated more than three hours before convicting Emjadia Porter, Anthony D. Williamson, Gregory Todd Harrell and Melody A. Niblett in the drug conspiracy.
A fifth person, David Grant, pleaded guilty before the trial to his role in the conspiracy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Peters said Porter came to Roanoke from New York in the early 1990s and has been suspected of dealing drugs for several years. Williamson and Grant moved to Roanoke in 1993.
Once in Roanoke, the three men met up with Harrell - who has lived in Roanoke for nearly a decade - and ran a drug operation out of a house on Frontier Road Northeast. Niblett, of Roanoke, became involved when she started dating Grant.
Peters said that more than 25 grams of cocaine were seized from the defendants, but that federal agents aren't sure of the total amount of cocaine involved in the conspiracy.
``They were substantial street dealers,'' she said.
Peters said Williamson and Porter were the ringleaders, and that both face at least 20 years in prison.
In addition to drug conspiracy, Williamson was convicted of carrying a firearm while dealing drugs, and Porter was found guilty of threatening an undercover drug informant.
The guilty verdicts, reached at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, ended a long week for the 12 jurors.
But the attorneys may have been the happiest people to see it end. They were trying the case for the second time.
The first jury trial in September was declared a mistrial after one of the jurors - after hearing more than two days of testimony about Porter's drug runs to New York - told Judge Samuel Wilson that he worked for Amtrak in Lynchburg and could remember selling Porter a train ticket to New York.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***