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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995                   TAG: 9508280050
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

2-YEAR SENTENCE FOR DRUGS

William E. McCray received an additional four years because, at the time of the offenses, he was on probation for a conviction of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.

As part of an agreement reached in Roanoke Circuit Court, McCray, 34, pleaded no contest to two counts of distributing methamphetamine to a police informant at Benovie Graphics in the Wasena neighborhood.

Regional Drug Prosecutor Dennis Nagel agreed to reduce the charges to distribution as an accommodation, meaning that McCray did not profit from the transactions.

Defense attorney David Damico said McCray was not a drug dealer, but that, as a new employee at Benovie Graphics, he helped in the transactions after being told to do so by his boss.

Benjamin Willett, the owner and operator of the silk-screening business, was sentenced earlier this month to 101/2 years in prison on charges of distributing methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana to the informant over several months.

The charges came at the same time that Wasena residents complained to city officials about problems with drug dealing in the neighborhood. But authorities said the activity at Benovie Graphics was not related to the more visible and widespread problem with crack cocaine trafficking in the area.