THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200301
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
At an unpublicized meeting here this month, top federal prosecutors in eastern North Carolina and Virginia worked out a joint crime-fighting plan to speed law enforcement across the border between Hampton Roads and the Albemarle.
``We've opened up new lines of communications that are appropriate for communities as closely linked as the Hampton Roads area and Northeastern North Carolina,'' said Janice McKenzie Cole, chief federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Cole, a Perquimans County attorney and former District Court judge, met last week with Helen F. Fahey, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to decide how they could work together to ``fight criminals and crime patterns that cross jurisdictional lines.''
The joint law enforcement meeting was further evidence of increasing bureaucratic cooperation between Virginia and North Carolina.
Earlier this year, officials of the two states met in Norfolk in an opening move to resolve the decade-long controversy over piping Lake Gaston, N.C., water to Virginia Beach.
The ``Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysis Meeting'' was called by Cole last Wednesday. U.S., state and local law enforcement officials attended the first organizational session in the Kermit White Center at Elizabeth City State University.
``We will continue these meetings to plan cooperative strategy,'' said Cole. ``We believe both (Virginia and N.C. border areas) have similar crime problems and much will be gained from our joint efforts.''
Cole said she felt faster communication between federal agencies in the adjacent states would make it easier to arrest and prosecute drug dealers and other criminals who regularly operate across state lines.
``One important step we'll take is to speed up the process of calling in federal investigators - the FBI, for instance. These U.S. agents usually report to different headquarters in North Carolina and Virginia. Better lines of communication will more rapidly get agents assigned to an interstate investigation,'' said Cole.
Cole, whose federal offices are in Raleigh, was named by President Clinton earlier this year to the U.S. prosecutor's post. Before that she won a near-landslide election in 1990 as District Court judge in the northeastern 1st N.C. Judicial District.
Helen Fahey, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia, has headquarters in Alexandria, across the Potomac River from Washington.
When Janice Cole resigned her job on the District Court bench to accept the Presidential appointment, N.C. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. named her husband, James Carlton Cole, to serve his wife's unexpired term.
``J.C.'' Cole is running as a Democrat for a regular term on the District Court bench in the November elections. He is opposed by Republican James A. Beales Jr., an Elizabeth City attorney.
Both Coles practiced law together in Hertford, the county seat of Perquimans County. by CNB