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Drug bust leads to huge police corruption probe

By Ann O'Neill
CNN

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(CNN) -- The investigation that exposed an allegedly corrupt Virginia sheriff's department began with a package containing vials of a date-rape drug.

Although Drug Enforcement Administration agents didn't know it at the time, the package was shipped to a house that belonged to a sergeant with the Henry County Sheriff's Office.

According to a grand jury indictment, the DEA intercepted the package, delivered it undercover and arrested self-described middleman William Randall Reed in March 2005. Reed agreed to cooperate and quickly pointed the finger at Sgt. James Allen Vaught.

Reed said he paid Vaught with cash and Ketamine, the so-called date rape drug, to use the house as a drug drop. The house also was used by other members of the sheriff's office for parties and extramarital trysts, the federal indictment states.

Reed also told authorities that he had helped Vaught sell cocaine the deputy had seized from a suspect.

Vaught resigned from the department soon after Reed's arrest and, a few months later, agreed to cooperate with investigators. He admitted to Reed's allegations and agreed to wear a wire to record conversations with his former colleagues.

The result was a 48-count indictment unsealed Thursday with the arrests of longtime Sheriff Harold Franklin Cassell and 17 others. A dozen of them wore or had worn the uniform of the Henry County Sheriff's Office. (Watch a prosecutor describe 'disgraceful' corruption -- 2:13 )

Some of them are accused of stealing cocaine, marijuana and weapons from suspects and the sheriff's evidence property room and selling the contraband to criminals, who put it back on the street.

Others are accused of distributing steroids and weapons, including a machine gun with an obliterated serial number.

The indictment says the corruption had been going on since 1998.

"These were drugs and guns that were seized as part of their law enforcement duties that were then stolen from the property room and put back out on the streets," U.S. Attorney John L. Brownlee said.

"You have law enforcement [officers] risking their lives to take these guns off the streets and then a very few members of law enforcement putting them right back out there."

Cassell was elected sheriff of county, population 58,000, in 1992. His department employs 122 people, 96 of them sworn law enforcement officers.

Today, in the wake of the indictment, the sheriff's office is being run by the Virginia State police.

Besides the sheriff, those named in the indictment include a captain, three sergeants, eight deputies -- including two vice officers -- a former employee of the U.S. postal service and a former probation officer.

One deputy, Walter R. Hairston, allegedly gave Vaught marijuana and cocaine he used to train the department's drug-sniffing dogs. The contraband was then sold, the indictment says.

According to the indictment, the DEA called to report a drug shipment to a "Brad Martin's house" in 2001. The call was taken by Martin, a sheriff's deputy.

Martin, Hairston and four other deputies, along with alleged drug dealer Wilbert Herman Brown, are accused in the indictment of racketeering. They allegedly made up a corrupt organization that stole and distributed drugs, including crack cocaine, and obstructed justice.

Cassell was told by authorities about the shipment to Martin's house, as well as other allegations of illegal activity in the department, and did nothing, the indictment alleges.

Instead, according to the indictment, Cassell tipped off targets of the investigation, lied to investigators and helped Vaught launder drug profits.

Henry County, hard against the North Carolina line in Virginia's southern Piedmont region, is perhaps best known for the Martinsville Speedway, where NASCAR races are held twice a year. It used to boast it was the "sweatshirt capital of the world," according to The Associated Press.

The county's textile and furniture industries have seen better times, and its unemployment rate is higher than the state average.

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