ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
KEITH NEELY HAD THE RIGHT STUFF to become one of the top lawyers in the South, some said. Today, Neely goes to federal prison.
Former Christiansburg lawyer Keith Neely reports to federal prison in Petersburg at noon today to begin a 10-year term for money laundering and drug charges.
It's the end of a long legal battle by the 46-year-old Neely against a 1993 federal conviction. It also marks a long fall for a local boy who rose from a blue-collar background to become one of Southwest Virginia's most sought-after lawyers in the early 1980s.
"It's been difficult just sitting here for three years with basically your life stagnant," Neely said. "I wanted the appeal to work - thought it would."
In February, Neely - long known for his feistiness inside the courtroom and his flashy lifestyle outside it - lost his appeal in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He still hopes for a U.S. Supreme Court appeal.
For the last month, Neely has been preparing for prison.
"They let you take prescription eyeglasses, a phone book, and as much money as I want to bring, and that's it," Neely said.
He has visited friends, run as often as possible and played an occasional game of pool. He seems more distraught over the end of his on-again, off-again relationship with a local woman than prison.
He will be 55 when he walks out of prison.
Neely says those who think he should have accepted a shorter three-year prison term by pleading to one count of money laundering don't know him well.
"If I'd taken that plea, I'd be admitting I did something wrong, and I didn't do it."
Karen Peters, the assistant U.S. attorney who handled the prosecution, says Neely is like a young man who has long relied on his boyish charm to get out of scrapes and refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
Federal prosecutors said Neely acted as a middleman in the 1980s, helping drug suppliers and buyers arrange deals. The key evidence against Neely came from several convicted or admitted drug dealers who were given immunity or reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony, according to accounts of his 1993 federal trial.
Neely argued that all he did was hang out with the wrong crowd and share cocaine and marijuana with fellow users.
Prosecutors said Neely became involved in the drug trade after befriending players in the largest cocaine-smuggling operation ever busted in Virginia.
Neely also was convicted of possessing cocaine for personal use and distributing marijuana to a court reporter who slipped him secret federal grand jury testimony. He was acquitted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to distribute drugs.
Neely says the jury's split decision shows "there was certainly some jury confusion." He says he received a letter from one of the jurors after the trial, apologizing for the verdict.
Neely laughs when told that some people joke he should join Wallace Thrasher on the lam. Thrasher is the Bland County pilot - suspected of flying drugs into Southwest Virginia from the Caribbean - who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1984.
"I truly believe that a guilty man runs," Neely said. He says running has never been a consideration, that he is anchored to the community by his family, including his two children.
`I was asking for trouble'
Some believe that Neely's star rose too fast and that he dealt poorly with success.
Neely grew up in Christiansburg. His father worked at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, his mother at an overalls factory. He used his skills on the football field to stand out in high school and college.
He attended the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law with the financial support and encouragement of Christiansburg lawyer Kenneth Devore, who later became a circuit judge.
Soon after Neely returned to his hometown with a law degree, he emerged as one of the region's most sought-after lawyers, taking on larger-than-life clients, each one helping to boost his increasingly flamboyant reputation.
His clients included Randall Lee Smith, who killed two hikers in Giles County in 1981, and Mabel Amerson, a Pulaski County baby sitter who in 1988 was acquitted in the slaying of her employer.
His life started to sour after he became involved with Olga Thrasher, the wife of the suspected drug kingpin; he first defended her in court and later sued her to collect legal fees.
In the book "Murder on the Appalachian Trail," Radford author Jess Carr suggested Neely had the stuff to become the F. Lee Bailey of the South.
"He had as much natural talent as any lawyer I've ever seen," Radford lawyer Max Jenkins said.
But as Neely fought for his clients, he was also fighting his own addictions.
"There's no question that I was a substance abuser. ... I went out and I drank far in excess of what I should have done. And I'd go to the point that after I'd get about half-drunk, you know, if there's something else around, I'd do that."
As his criminal and personal injury law practice grew, Neely had the material goods to show for it. He drove a Jaguar with personalized plates. He became famous for his "Miami Vice" style designer suits. He admits now that his style made him a more tempting target. "Hey, I was asking for trouble."
Shortly after his 1993 convictions, Neely continued to flaunt his attitude, showing up at a karaoke night at the Farmhouse restaurant in Christiansburg and singing "I Fought the Law and the Law Won.''
`Little carrots out there'
In 1990, Neely pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine. The federal charge was based on a videotape of Neely at the apartment of a female informant in late 1988, spreading cocaine on a coffee table and snorting it through a rolled-up $100 bill.
Neely's marriage had crumbled in September 1987 and a reconciliation failed the following fall. That's when he met the woman he later learned was an informant. Neely says he never saw the videotape and doesn't remember having cocaine that night.
He received two years' probation on the possession charge, but he says he knew his battles with the federal government weren't over.
Federal investigators and prosecutors were building a stronger case centered on drug activity in Montgomery County.
"They had the little carrots out there" to induce people to help nail him, he said.
Peters said Neely's drug associates turned on him because "there wasn't any honor among that group, which is why ultimately they testified against him.''
"Throughout this ordeal, I have found ... who my real friends are and my real friends aren't. I would have greatly have rather not really known," Neely said.
"Out of all the players in this whole case, I can understand why they said what they said and why they did what they did, except for one, and that's Jimmy Turk."
The two lawyers were once very good friends. Now, "we never talk," Neely said.
For Neely, that's because Turk represented Leigh Hurst, who ended up testifying against Neely in his 1993 trial. Turk, the son of a federal judge, also was a prosecution witness.
"He sent Leigh Hurst to me ... and then kept calling me during my representation [of Hurst] and put me in a very uncomfortable position," Turk counters.
Turk says he never had reason to suspect Neely was involved in drug trafficking. He said he always worked hard to be Neely's friend - taking him for substance abuse help and appearing in court for him on short notice when Neely couldn't make it. Turk said he told his friend he needed to make changes in his life.
"I don't think he really ever took the good advice that his true friends suggested to him," Turk said. "If he'd done that, I don't think he'd find himself in the situation he is today."
`Life in the fast lane'
``It didn't take the law nor the jail nor any kind of charges or anything like that for me to understand I had a problem and I had to make some changes in my life," Neely said. He turned back to athletics.
He says it has been at least six years, maybe longer, since he used drugs.
"I'm certainly not an abuser of anything anymore - except running."
Neely could be seen running regularly in Christiansburg over the past few years. He competed in three marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 1995.
"It's kept my sanity. It produces a natural high."
As Neely fought the charges, losing his law license in the process, he found other ways to earn a living - paralegal work for Roanoke lawyer Richard Lawrence; working for a Christiansburg car dealership; and, more recently, marketing a degreasing product to garages and auto dealers.
Neely takes pride in how he has rebuilt his life, but he cannot help but see some irony.
"Here I am getting ready to go to jail, and I've got my life under control.''
For his part, Turk thinks his former friend is facing too much time.
"It's a very sad ending, it really is, for a person who had so much, who offered so much potential and who recklessly let it all slip away," Turk said.
Peters sees Neely's story differently. "He's a very lucky man that he has been alive after the abuses he has been involved in. Other people who have lived in the fast lane as he has didn't live to get off the highway," she said.
"Keith Neely isn't the only lawyer out there who came from a middle class family and had to work his way through law school. ... We're not talking about a ghetto kid here. Keith Neely had the friendship and sponsorship of Judge Devore ... He had a ready-made mentor and well-placed friends from the go of it," Peters said.
"What I could see was a bright, talented, personable young man who was fascinated by life in the fast lane. He wanted to grab it all with both hands from both sides and did it for many years."
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Neely. color.by CNB