THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, October 27, 1994             TAG: 9410270496
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL INMATE: SEX USED 
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: PETERSBURG                         LENGTH: Medium:   82 lines

In 1990, convicted drug supplier Gary Weathers allegedly tried to persuade his friend and co-defendant, James Small, to cooperate with federal authorities in a large-scale drug case in Portsmouth. In exchange, Weathers said, Small might get a sentence reduction - and, like Weathers, get some time alone for sex in the Norfolk FBI offices with his wife or girlfriend. ``He told me the FBI agents were all right,'' Small said Tuesday in an interview at the Federal Correctional Institute in Petersburg, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for drug possession. ``He said they let him have visits with his wife. . . and have time enough alone for sex. He told me they had sex several times, and I would be able to do the same if only I cooperated and told them things about drug dealing in Portsmouth.'' Small refused, he said. But the question of whether Weathers had sex in federal offices in exchange for his cooperation is central to the recently filed appeal of Marvin Anthony Pointer, who is serving life without parole for dealing drugs. Pointer has alleged in federal court that he was denied a fair trial because the FBI allowed Weathers - the key witness against him - to have sex in exchange for helping prosecute Pointer, and Pointer's attorneys were never told of the trysts. Twins were conceived during one of the alleged conjugal visits between Weathers and his wife, Cynlithia, claims Pointer's appeal, filed Oct. 11. The sexual encounters allegedly occurred in an FBI office in 1990. On Oct. 19, U.S. District Court Judge J. Calvitt Clarke ordered the U.S. attorney's office to respond to Pointer's appeal within 60 days. Pointer is asking that his conviction be overturned. If his allegations are true, Pointer's conviction and the convictions of as many as 10 other members of a major Hampton Roads drug gang could be affected. The $20 million heroin ring flourished in Hampton Roads from 1984 to 1990, smuggling narcotics from Northeastern cities. Weathers was a drug wholesaler who supplied Antonio Charles Blow, a Portsmouth heroin dealer whose 1988 trial exposed an extensive heroin underworld. In 1989, Blow was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Blow, Pointer and the others were convicted after Weathers testified against them or provided information that led to their arrests. In 1990 and 1991, the 11 men were given sentences ranging from three years in prison to life without parole. Pointer's attorney, James Broccoletti, alleges that authorities failed to give defense attorneys information about the conjugal visits. In doing so, they illegally suppressed evidence favorable to Pointer, Broccoletti claims. Pointer's charges are supported by federal court documents containing statements from Gary and Cynlithia Weathers. Officials with the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office have said they cannot comment on pending legal matters. Small was not one of the 11 defendants affected by Weathers' cooperation. Instead, court records indicate he has nothing to gain from going public about Weathers' admissions in 1990. He said that his release date is December 1995. According to Small, federal authorities brought him from the U.S. Penitentiary in Morgantown, W.Va., to the Virginia Beach jail in 1990. FBI agent James Watters allegedly told him, ``If it were up to me, we wouldn't have brought you back,'' Small recalled. ``But Gary wanted it.'' During the next two weeks, Small was brought to FBI offices several times to meet with Weathers, he said. ``Gary said he asked them to bring me to see if he could help me,'' Small said. ``I could get time off my sentence, just like him. ``I said, `How can you trust them?' Small said. ``Gary said, `They're all right,' then told me about how he had gotten his wife pregnant. . . . He told me how once how they almost walked in on him and his wife, but a chair was blocking the door. ``I feel now the FBI was using Gary to convince me,'' Small said. ``Later, before I went back to prison, an FBI agent asked me about Pointer,'' Small said. ``I busted out laughing and he asked me why I was laughing. I said they had to be crazy trying to put that man in prison for nothing. Pointer . . . had nothing to do with all those drugs. ``Then, when I heard he got life without parole, I knew the authorities could do most anything they want,'' he added.

A co-defendant told James Small that the FBI would let him have

conjugal visits in its offices.

KEYWORDS: SEX FOR TESTIMONY by CNB