Pubdate: Thu, 18 Apr 2002
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
Copyright: 2002 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Alan Maimon and Joseph Gerth
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n748/a10.html

MURDER SUSPECT HAS LONG RECORD AS DRUG DEALER, POLICE INFORMANT

'Political' Motive Cited In Slaying Of Pulaski Sheriff

SOMERSET, Ky. -- A man charged with complicity in the murder of Pulaski 
County Sheriff Sam Catron is a longtime drug dealer and police informant 
who traded information for leniency going back some 20 years.

As hundreds of people turned out yesterday to walk past the casket of 
Catron, the lead detective in the case said the motive for Catron's 
shooting Saturday night at a fish fry and political rally appears to link 
politics and drugs.

One of Catron's opponents in the May 28 Republican primary for sheriff also 
is charged with complicity in Catron's death.

Jeff Morris, a former deputy under Catron who was running an aggressive 
campaign against his former boss, was charged Monday, along with Kenneth 
White, a well-known drug dealer who was helping in Morris' campaign.

Danny Shelley, a Morris supporter and the alleged gunman, was charged 
Sunday with capital murder. Shelley was apprehended shortly after the 
shooting while fleeing on Morris' motorcycle.

"The basic motive is political," said Kentucky State Police Detective Todd 
Dalton. "You have a sheriff's candidate who wants to be sheriff and two 
other guys who want to have him as sheriff."

According to Dalton, investigators believe White and Shelley were helping 
Morris' campaign in return for favors -- looking the other way regarding 
their drug activities. Dalton said Shelley has a drug problem. Catron, 48, 
had focused on anti-drug work.

Mark Stanziano, Shelley's attorney, said, "Maybe the detective should quit 
speculating and poisoning the jury pool and report facts."

Dalton said the three suspects were virtually inseparable since joining 
forces on Morris' campaign, which was officially declared in January.

The men spent the day of Catron's murder buying a battery at Wal-Mart for 
the motorcycle Shelley would later use to flee, Dalton said, and spent time 
politicking at a local flea market. Investigators have a videotape from 
Wal-Mart, but Dalton has declined to reveal what is on it.

Shelley, 30, has pleaded innocent. Morris, 34, and White, 54, are scheduled 
for arraignment tomorrow. All three could face the death penalty if convicted.

At the visitation for Catron, the line of somber mourners -- including 
lawenforcement officers from across Kentucky -- stretched at times to the 
parking lot at the Center for Rural Development in Somerset, where Catron's 
funeral is to be conducted today.

White, a native of Perry County, has acknowledged selling drugs but has 
largely avoided prosecution by giving information to police.

In a 1985 interview, White admitted to The Courier-Journal that he had 
trafficked in narcotics in the past, but he said he had cleaned up his act 
and was running a store that sold beer.

"I don't care what people think about me, because I know what I'm doing," 
he said in the interview. "I'm not selling drugs. What I'm doing is legal. 
I'm selling beer."

White was widely used by Kentucky State Police in the 1980s to inform on 
drug users and pushers.

In November 1979, White allegedly sold sedatives at his home, which was 
then in Perry County, to a state police detective. He subsequently was 
indicted, but The Courier-Journal reported at the time that White bargained 
his way out of the case with information about other drug dealers, leading 
to dismissal of the indictment in 1982.

In 1989, White was convicted in federal court of growing marijuana, but the 
case was overturned on appeal because prosecutors failed to prove that he 
owned the 80 marijuana plants.

Steve Tackett, a former county attorney and district court judge in Perry 
County, said yesterday that White was "one of the largest drug dealers" in 
the county, but that prosecutors had a difficult time bringing charges 
against him.

Alva Hollon Jr., a former Perry County commonwealth's attorney who tried 
unsuccessfully to put White behind bars for selling drugs, said he didn't 
know White was an informant at the time and was never told to back off his 
prosecution.

Hollon, now a lawyer in Florida, said using informants is sometimes 
distasteful and can even wreck a case.

"Sometimes that is the only way to get things done," Hollon said. 
"Sometimes you have to get people on the inside and try to make a deal. 
Hopefully you don't make a deal with the big fish to get the little fish."

Dalton said he believes Catron's office used White as an informant only 
once, about a year ago, in an effort to charge two men who allegedly broke 
into pharmacies in Danville and Harrodsburg to steal the powerful 
prescription painkiller OxyContin.

In exchange for the information, police and prosecutors agreed to drop a 
cocaine-possession charge against White.

Pulaski County Attorney William Thompson said dropping the charge was a 
"mutual decision by the sheriff's office and the county attorney's office . 
. . based on his cooperation in other investigations."

Thompson, who became county attorney after the agreement had been made, 
said Catron approved the decision.

Commenwealth's Attorney Eddy Montgomery said choosing informants is 
difficult and often involves enlisting the help of "unsavory characters," 
some of whom make a living by going from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as 
informants.

"Most of them do it for shielding from prosecution," he said. "It's an 
unfortunate part of the system."

Montgomery said it's easy to second-guess using White as an informant, but 
prosecuting him on the cocaine possession charge could have netted little, 
if any, jail time.

Tony Hockensmith, who helped build White's Pulaski County home last year 
and lives a few hundred yards away, said White has sold drugs openly for 
some time.

Hockensmith said he watched on several occasions as White sold drugs to 
Shelley, and he said White tried unsuccessfully to recruit him to carry drugs.

Hockensmith said White was careful to conduct deals in the basement of his 
house to keep his wife from knowing about them. In a 1983 case in which 
White was named as an informant, White testified it was his wife, Essie, 
who called police after overhearing a drug transaction.

White's new house, near Lake Cumberland, is valued at $75,000, and there is 
no mortgage on it.

Hockensmith said the house is equipped with high-tech gadgetry such as 
surveillance cameras, motion detectors and devices that can determine 
whether a visitor is wearing a surveillance wire.

Montgomery said such equipment is popular among drug dealers.
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