ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 28, 1996 TAG: 9611290100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C9 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A police officer on patrol outside a Long Island motel checked the license plate of an unusual car, which turned out to belong to a man wanted in Virginia on drug-related homicide charges.
Dean Beckford, 29, of Brooklyn, was arrested Tuesday outside the Oceanside Motor Inn after the officer noticed the 1994 Cadillac with South Carolina plates and ran a computer check on the vehicle, said Officer Robert Totans, a Nassau County police spokesman. Totans did not know what the officer thought was unusual about the car.
The officer called for assistance and other officers and FBI agents arrived and arrested Beckford when he walked out of his hotel room about 12:45 p.m.
Beckford and 24 others were charged in August in a 32-count indictment that was unsealed in Richmond. The indictment charged the group with operating the ``Poison Clan'' cocaine business in Richmond and the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
Beckford is alleged to be responsible for the 1988 murders of Sherman Ambrose and Dasmond Miller in Richmond, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
U.S. Attorney Helen Fahey, of the Eastern District of Virginia, said Dean and his brother, Devon, ran the cocaine operation, which was based in Brooklyn and Queens.
Six of the 25 defendants have been arrested. Devon Beckford is among those at large.
LENGTH: Short : 38 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB