THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609150051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY CATHERINE KOZAK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: 75 lines
After almost three days of testimony, a jury deliberated for three hours before finding Leroy ``Boogie'' McClease guilty of 20 charges related to the sale and possession of crack cocaine.
The 47-year-old Manteo native was found not guilty of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise.
McClease was nabbed at his Fernando Street residence in last December's ``Season's Greetings'' drug sting. An undercover agent spent four months on the Outer Banks buying drugs before dozens of law enforcement officers launched a pre-dawn raid of homes across the Outer Banks six days before Christmas.
Of the 49 people indicted as a result, 30 have pleaded guilty, nine cases are pending, and seven people cannot be found, Prosecutor Robert Trivette said.
McClease's case was the first to go to trial.
He was charged with 25 felony counts stemming from seven occasions when, the indictment said, he sold crack to Jeff Morales, an agent with the state Alcohol Law Enforcement Division. Charges also included possession of a firearm.
McClease was convicted in 1993 of sale and delivery of one-tenth of a gram of cocaine, a felony.
Before the jury began deliberating Friday evening, Superior Court Judge Jerry Tillett dismissed one count of maintaining a motor vehicle for purposes of selling a controlled substance, and three counts of drug trafficking. McClease would have faced a 130-month sentence for trafficking alone.
Defense attorney Randy Jones said Saturday he was satisfied with the verdict because his client was not convicted of the most serious charges that related to large-scale drug dealing.
``He was still found guilty quite a bit, but in my opening statement, those were the charges that were my focus,'' Jones said.
McClease will be sentenced next week, Jones said.
During the trial, McClease's family and friends often filled two or three rows of benches. His wife, Carrie, was there every day.
In a statement read during the trial that McClease had given to an ALE agent the morning he was arrested, he said his wife and children had no idea he was dealing drugs or that he was addicted to crack. He also told the agent he had sold crack for two years and had about 10 regular customers. McClease purchased the crack he sold from ``Dred'' in Elizabeth City, usually buying ``an eight-ball'' for $125 and reselling it for $150.
McClease testified that when he made the statement, he was ``mostly tired and sleepy'' and was coming down from a two-day crack binge. He also said that the agent was ``doing a whole lot of hollering'' and that McClease was not clear about what his rights were. McClease said he cannot read.
Tillett denied a motion to suppress McClease's statement to investigators. Tillett said there was no evidence that the defendant hadn't understood his rights or had been coerced into talking.
Agent Morales, posing as a Hatteras fisherman named Jay, had earlier said he was introduced to the local drug scene by a confidential informant later identified to be Trevor Gurganus. Gurganus was recently apprehended in Camden County on a felony drug charge, law enforcement officials said.
Morales, then sporting a beard and long hair, lived in a condo in Nags Head. McClease, his friends and some of his six children often stopped to chat with Morales at his condo, or when they ran into him on the street. When McClease was being videotaped at the agent's condo selling crack to him, Morales off-screen gave him chicken and mashed potatoes and some Crown Royal to take home.
``It was his birthday,'' Morales shrugged.
Morales - now with a neat mustache and short hair - said he made a total of 125 purchases of cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana between August and late November 1995, with a street value of $15,000 to $20,000.
Morales said the sting was ended when his superiors became concerned that his cover had been blown by Gurganus. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Leroy ``Boogie'' McClease, 47, was found not guilty of conducting a
continuing criminal enterprise. by CNB