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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 15, 1995                   TAG: 9503150058
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IMITATION DEALER GETS JAIL

After Melvin E. Mike was convicted Monday of possessing an imitation substance with intent to distribute, he received what is believed to be the first jury sentence in Roanoke for such a charge.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Nagel said it is not unusual for drug dealers to make some easy money by passing off an imitation of crack cocaine - such as soap, wax, aquarium rocks or peanuts - and charging their customers for the real thing.

"It's a fairly common part of the drug trade," Nagel said. Although the charge carries a sentence of up 12 months in jail or five years in prison, less than the punishment for dealing real drugs, Nagel said the offense is just as serious.

"It actually heightens the danger," because angry drug addicts might become violent after discovering that they were ripped off, he said.

In Mike's case, testimony in Roanoke Circuit Court showed that he was carrying seven small quartz rocks that resembled rocks of cocaine when police stopped him as he walked down Melrose Avenue Northwest last June.

After arresting Mike on an outstanding warrant, police searched him and found nothing. But after the 18-year-old was placed in a patrol car and driven to jail, authorities found the rocks near where he had been sitting.

Nagel argued to the jury that Mike had concealed the drugs between his buttocks, a practice he said is common among drug dealers, and then dropped them in the police car. Assistant Public Defender John Varney, however, had argued there was no evidence to show that Mike ever had the rocks in his possession.

But police were suspicious from the minute Mike was arrested, perhaps because it was his third arrest on a drug charge. A vice detective testified that he made a thorough search of the police car's back seat and that the rocks were not there before Mike was placed inside.