Pubdate: Fri, 13 Oct 2006
Source: Fayetteville Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2006 Fayetteville Observer
Contact:  http://www.fayettevillenc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/150
Author: Greg Barnes

FORMER ROBESON LAWMEN PLEAD GUILTY

RALEIGH -- Two former Robeson County deputies pleaded guilty Thursday 
to getting paid with taxpayers' money to help landscape an elected 
official's yard and to raise campaign money for him during a golf 
tournament. U.S. Assistant District Attorney Wes Camden declined to 
identify the elected official in court.

Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt has said previously 
that investigators substantiated allegations that deputies once 
helped former Sheriff Glenn Maynor move into a new home and 
landscaped his yard. On Thursday, former deputies Paul Pittman and 
Billy Hunt pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States 
between September 2002 and September 2003. Pittman, who is 40, 
resigned from the Sheriff's Office this month.

He and Hunt, who is 37, had worked in the Drug Enforcement Division, 
the focus of a nearly four-year state and federal investigation 
called Operation Tarnished Badge. The investigation, by the Internal 
Revenue Service and the State Bureau of Investigation, has led to 
allegations of wrongdoing against 11 former deputies and two 
Lumberton police officers.

Pittman, Hunt and four other deputies -- Patrick Ferguson, James 
Hunt, Kevin Meares and Joey Smith -- have all pleaded guilty in 
federal court in exchange for their testimony against other former lawmen.

Maynor resigned abruptly as sheriff in December 2004, citing health 
reasons. He has not been charged.

Every deputy who worked in his drug division at the time of his 
resignation has now either been indicted or pleaded guilty. Camden, 
the assistant U.S. attorney, said Pittman, Billy Hunt and others who 
worked on the elected official's yard and at his golf tournament were 
"allowed to write this time off." Camden valued the work at $5,000. 
He said the Sheriff's Office received about $10,000 in federal money 
during the year the offenses happened, making the crimes punishable 
in U.S. District Court. Pittman and Billy Hunt face a maximum of five 
years in prison and fines of as much as $250,000. Their cooperation 
could help reduce their sentences, Judge Terrence Boyle said. Both 
men pleaded guilty to a bill of criminal information and were 
released pending a later sentencing. Hunt was allowed to return to 
his home in South Carolina.

The latest guilty pleas follow the June indictment of former deputies 
Roger Taylor, C.T. Strickland and Steven Lovin. The 10-count 
racketeering indictment alleges arson of two homes and a business, 
assault, theft of public funds, distribution of drugs and money 
laundering. A trial for Taylor, Strickland and Lovin has been 
scheduled for December. James Hunt pleaded guilty in July to stealing 
more than $150,000 during six drug stops on Interstate 95. Hunt said 
he and Lovin split the money. Meares pleaded guilty in August to 
stealing about $25,000 in federal equity sharing funds.

Ferguson pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to kidnap two 
Virginia men and using a firearm during a crime Another former 
deputy, Vincent Sinclair, also is accused of kidnapping the two 
Virginia men, as well as committing other crimes.

A trial is pending for Sinclair, who was fired from the Sheriff's 
Office shortly after his arrest in May 2005. He has not been indicted.

All of the deputies but Ferguson worked in the Drug Enforcement 
Division. Ferguson worked in the juvenile unit, under current Sheriff 
Kenneth Sealey. Two former Lumberton police officers -- Leon Oxendine 
and James Jordan -- also have been charged since Operation Tarnished 
Badge began.

The two officers were accused of having an informant plant a computer 
disk containing an image of a counterfeit $100 bill at the home of a 
suspected drug dealer. Jordan pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was 
stripped of his law enforcement certification. Oxendine was convicted 
in 2004 of tampering with a witness, making false statements to the 
FBI and five counts of making false declarations
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