Pubdate: Sat, 23 Nov 2002
Source: Dispatch, The (NC)
Copyright: 2002, The Lexington Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.the-dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1583
Author: William Keesler

WOODALL SUPPORTS FELLOW INMATE'S BID FOR FREEDOM

GREENSBORO -- More than 30 drug defendants investigated by three former 
Davidson County narcotics officers have had cases dismissed or convictions 
overturned since the officers were charged last December with distributing 
drugs themselves.

Most of those dismissals occurred as the narcotics officers negotiated 
guilty pleas and sentences.

But a new request by Terrence Maurice Barriet, a Lexington man convicted 
two years ago on federal charges of possessing with intent to distribute 
cocaine and possessing a firearm by a convicted felon, breaks new ground.

Accompanying Barriet's court motion is an affidavit signed by one of the 
narcotics officers, Scott Woodall, admitting that the crack cocaine used as 
evidence against Barriet was planted.

Barriet, serving a 10-year term, and Woodall, sentenced to 27 years, are 
now residents of the same prison - the Federal Correctional Institution at 
Manchester, Ky.

In May, two months after Woodall pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 
four kinds of drugs, extortion, and carrying a firearm during a crime of 
violence, Barriet filed a Section 2255 motion to vacate, set aside or 
correct his sentence. Barriet is serving as his own lawyer.

In August, after running into procedural delays and less than a month after 
U.S. District Judge William Osteen sent Woodall to prison, Barriet renewed 
the motion.

Barriet, 32, has had a decade of trouble with the law. He worked as a 
jailer under former sheriff Jim Johnson for not quite eight months in 1992 
- - resigning, he states in a court document, after being falsely accused of 
selling drugs.

In the 10 years since, he has been charged with a long list of offenses, 
including possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, carrying a concealed 
weapon, assault on a female, nonsupport of an illegitimate child and 
writing worthless checks.

After a raid on an East Fourth Street apartment where Barriet lived in 
1998, Lexington police charged him with possession of cocaine with intent 
to sell or deliver, possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, 
maintaining a dwelling to keep drugs, and resisting, obstructing and 
delaying an officer.

A warrant charged that Barriet ran from a city detective trying to serve a 
valid search warrant, slammed and locked his front door, went into a 
bathroom, held the door closed and flushed crack cocaine down the toilet.

The police seized 10 grams of crack cocaine, 5.8 grams of marijuana, $769 
in cash, electronic scales and razor blades.

After pleading guilty in Davidson County Superior Court and District Court 
to the cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession charges and to 
resisting an officer, Barriet received a fine and probation.

Barriet moved to an apartment on Bristol Street after the Fourth Street 
bust, and five months later Lexington police filed new charges against him, 
this time for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Then on May 22, 1999, narcotics officers from the sheriff's office came 
calling with another search warrant.

In court papers, Barriet states that Woodall, two other county narcotics 
officers also now serving prison terms for drug distribution, Doug 
Westmoreland and Billy Rankin, and a fourth narcotics officer entered his 
apartment and said they had found seven grams of cocaine in his 1992 Lexus.

He said the officers pulled his pants down to his ankles and handcuffed 
him, with Rankin using a foot to pin his head to the floor. Woodall and 
Westmoreland then "crashed" into the bathroom, where his children were 
bathing and his wife was seated on the toilet.

Finding no drugs inside the house, Woodall, Westmoreland and Rankin crawled 
under the structure, removed a drain plug below the toilet and came back 
with a plastic bag containing 28.2 grams of cocaine that they alleged was 
his, Barriet states. An inventory indicates the officers also seized a 
handgun, digital scales, plastic bags, razor blades, the Lexus and the 
ceramic toilet.

The officers filed state charges against Barriet for trafficking and 
conspiracy to traffick in cocaine, two counts of maintaining places - his 
house and his car - to keep illegal drugs, and manufacturing cocaine. They 
also filed trafficking, conspiracy and maintaining a dwelling charges 
against his wife, Michelle.

Instead of prosecuting in state court, the county officers took the case 
against Terrence Barriet to the federal government, which offers tougher 
penalties. In November 1999, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges 
of possessing 25.1 grams of crack cocaine and possessing a firearm as a 
convicted felon.

Although Barriet maintains in court papers that he told his public defender 
the drugs were planted, he pleaded guilty to the charges in the indictment 
and received a 120-month sentence in June 2000. State charges against him 
were dismissed. His wife pleaded guilty in state court to possession of 
cocaine under a special community sentencing program and received a fine 
and probation.

In his 2255 motion, Barriet alleges violations of his rights to protection 
from unreasonable search and seizure and from self-incrimination, and to 
effective counsel and freedom from excessive bail, and he cites 
discrepancies in the amounts of drugs listed in arrest and court documents. 
In a separate motion, he asks the court to accept Woodall's affidavit in 
support of his 2255 motion.

In the affidavit, Woodall states that he has read Barriet's 2255 motion and 
the supporting memorandum Barriet filed. Woodall also states that he has a 
"clear and detailed memory" of the events described in the documents and 
that they "are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and remembrance."

"Terrence Maurice Barriet did not have drugs on his person or property on 
May 22, 1999," Woodall states.

"In order to make an arrest and charge of Terrence Maurice Barriet pass the 
test of indictment and trial, officers of the arrest detail manufactured 
evidence and testimony/statements against Terrence Maurice Barriet; to wit, 
planted crack cocaine in a drain plug .

"The crack cocaine was provided . in order to facilitate an arrest . that 
would result in prison sentence for Terrence Maurice Barriet.

"Terrence Maurice Barriet was threatened during his May 22, 1999, arrest to 
not give trouble to the case, or his wife would be victimized also."

Woodall states that he is giving the affidavit freely, without any promises 
or threats being made or favors being offered. He also offers to testify in 
court.

U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner's office has requested and received two 
30-day extensions to respond to Barriet's motion. Lynn Klauer, a 
spokeswoman for the office, declined to comment on the matter.
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