A key figure in recent federal-led probes of heroin trafficking in and around Roanoke pleaded guilty Friday in a deal that may have spared him a half-century in prison.

Clifton Dwight Lee, a 32-year-old who went by the nickname "Lite" during years of running heroin from Philadelphia and New Jersey, will still draw a 15-year sentence, his plea agreement said.

The agreement noted, however, that if he gives significant assistance to prosecutors as other defendants in several connected cases have done, he might be eligible for further reduction of his sentence.

In U.S. District Court in Roanoke on Friday, Lee acknowledged Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis' account of how three related drug organizations were selling thousands of bags of heroin every week in the city from late 2006 until last year.

"I conspired to sell drugs ... heroin," he told U.S. District Court Judge Glen Conrad.

Prosecutors and law enforcement officers have said the drug sales particularly raised alarms because they seemed to feed increased heroin use among young people.

Last month Michael John Duggins Jr., a teenager whose attorney said he had turned to Lee as a father figure of sorts, pleaded guilty to helping distribute heroin to customers whose ages ranged from 17 to 23.

Wolthuis said Friday that Lee had worked first with Robert Dwayne "Dollar Rob" Early, then, after a falling-out over money, with Alvin Lewis Macauley. Each man had his own connections, both to heroin suppliers and to smaller-scale dealers, Wolthuis said.

Early and Macauley have pleaded not guilty to various charges related to heroin distribution.

Lee told Conrad he had drawn disability payments for post-traumatic stress caused by a harsh childhood. Earlier in the case he was evaluated and found competent to stand trial.

Indicted and re-indicted several times during the case, Lee eventually faced 38 charges connected to drug dealing.

He pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin and to possessing a gun in connection with drug trafficking.

Lee's plea agreement, which Conrad said he would take under advisement until a sentencing hearing in July, would drop the remaining charges. The agreement also consolidated six firearms charges into one.

After the hearing, Wolthuis explained that the five additional firearms charges would have carried a mandatory 50-year minimum sentence if Lee had been convicted on them, but that the plea agreement removed the possibility that a jury might let Lee go free.

Lee is the fourth among 11 defendants in three related cases to plead guilty. On Thursday, Cynthia Nichols, charged with heroin distribution and with two counts of supplying heroin that led to a nonfatal overdose, is scheduled to plead guilty.

The rest of the case's defendants are scheduled for trial on Friday and on May 5.