THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609140281
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: 55 lines
The polite days of making moonshine in Virginia's mountains apparently are over.
An attorney who has defended suspected bootleggers says agents no longer abide by a time-honored gentlemen's agreement: Moonshiners are arrested only when they're caught red-handed.
Rocky Mount lawyer Bill Davis said he started hearing complaints from moonshiners several years ago. One man facing moonshine charges was agitated when he was caught by an agent using binoculars.
``It ain't fair,'' Davis remembers the man saying. ``They didn't see me with the naked eye.''
But Davis said the clearest break in the agreement understood by moonshiners and law enforcement officials came with the recent arrests of three members of the Stanley family in Rocky Mount.
A special state Alcohol Beverage Control agent has admitted in court that he turned into an anonymous tipster to get the Stanleys arrested in Shenandoah County for hauling bootleg liquor.
Davis is the attorney for the Stanleys - a family that gained notoriety earlier this year for being arrested three times in two weeks and charged with hauling moonshine.
Brothers Jason and Scott Stanley were stopped in Frederick County on Feb. 21 by a police officer who noticed that their vehicle was weaving back and forth on Interstate 81. A week later, the brothers were arrested in Shenandoah County and again charged with transporting moonshine after the state police received an anonymous tip.
Then, acting on another anonymous tip, a state trooper arrested Jason Stanley and his father, William Gray ``Dee'' Stanley, in Albemarle County on March 6 for hauling illegal liquor.
In the three arrests, more than 400 gallons of moonshine were seized.
Jason Stanley, 22, has since been convicted of moonshine charges in each of the counties. Scott Stanley, 25, has been convicted of moonshine charges in Shenandoah County and an unrelated charge in Frederick County.
They've both been sentenced to jail time and fines.
Dee Stanley, 50, who has a history of bootlegging convictions in Franklin County, was acquitted by an Albemarle County judge Wednesday.
Davis has appealed the Shenandoah County convictions of Jason and Scott Stanley, and filed a petition to present new evidence in Jason Stanley's Albemarle County case.
Davis says the police didn't have probable cause to stop the Stanleys' vehicle in Shenandoah or Albemarle counties because the state ABC agent who tipped them off wasn't absolutely sure the Stanleys were hauling moonshine.
Davis also says that the moonshine agents orchestrated a plan to get the Stanleys arrested outside Franklin County, where moonshining historically hasn't been viewed as a serious crime.
KEYWORDS: MOONSHINE BOOTLEGGER by CNB