THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502170499
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
A Dare County jury on Thursday found a 34-year-old Kill Devil Hills man innocent of transporting cocaine, but convicted him of a misdemeanor, possession of less than one gram of cocaine.
Superior Court Judge Clifton W. Everett of Pitt County gave Paul Rosario Delacruz III a two-year suspended sentence for the cocaine possession.
Delacruz also will be under supervised probation for three years and will have to repay the court for costs and lawyer fees. He will not spend any time in jail.
Originally, Delacruz was charged with trafficking more than 400 grams of cocaine by transportation and of trafficking more than 400 grams of cocaine by possession.
Both of those crimes are felonies in North Carolina. But the jury found Delacruz innocent of the first charge and reduced the second charge to a misdemeanor.
The charges stem from a September 1989 incident in which Delacruz picked up a friend, William Garrett, at the train station in Rocky Mount, N.C.
According to testimony, Garrett had been in Florida buying about a pound of cocaine before he rode the train to North Carolina. Garrett had the cocaine with him when Delacruz picked him up at the station - so Delacruz helped transport the drug to the Outer Banks.
During a three-day jury trial this week, Delacruz and his court-appointed attorney, W. Mark Spence of Nags Head, argued that Delacruz did not know that Garrett had a brick-sized block of cocaine with him when he entered Delacruz's vehicle.
Delacruz admitted, however, that he and Garrett used a small amount of cocaine on the ride from Rocky Mount to Dare County. That admission resulted in the misdemeanor conviction.
Garrett turned state's witness after his arrest, which led police to Delacruz.
In exchange for his information about fellow drug users and dealers, Garrett's charges were reduced from felonious possession of cocaine with intent to sell to a misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge.
Garrett received a suspended sentence in January, 1991. He testified against Delacruz in this week's trial.
KEYWORDS: TRIAL ILLEGAL DRUGS VERDICT SENTENCING by CNB