THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601130301
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Marc Harding told FBI agents the bullets that fell out of pockets when he was arrested in Portsmouth last summer were for his dogs. He fed the gunpowder to his pit bulls, he told the agents, to toughen them up.
Investigators believed the bullets were part of a stash used to gun down Tony Jones in June because Jones owed Harding $400. The FBI charged him with possession of ammunition.
Harding, 22, pleaded guilty and was sentenced Friday to 33 months in federal prison.
Harding, of the 300 block of Choate Street, is the first defendant sentenced as part of the federal initiative to stop violence in Portsmouth. A second defendant will be sentenced in February. Eight others have been indicted as a result of investigations by the Violence Task Force - a group of FBI agents and Portsmouth police - and are awaiting trial.
State charges from Jones' shooting are pending in Portsmouth. An affidavit filed in connection with the trial said Jones identified Harding as the shooter in a preliminary hearing there.
After Harding asked Judge Raymond Jackson Friday to give him a minimal sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Arenda Allen argued for the maximum 33 months allowed in the sentencing guidelines.
Allen told the judge Harding had been given numerous breaks in the state court system and numerous opportunities for rehabilitation including: Either no sentences or suspended sentences for assaulting a police officer, possession of cocaine, possession of a shotgun, receiving stolen property and seven traffic violations.
KEYWORDS: FEDERAL COURT SENTENCE by CNB