In the end, Robert Dwayne Early's defense was that he was a drug user, but not a drug dealer.

In two days of testimony in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Early's attorney hammered a central point, that the man known for years around the city's drug scene as "Dollar Rob" was too poor to have been a big-time dealer.

"What goes along with being a drug dealer?" attorney Melvin Hill asked jurors. "Profit."

But as Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis pointed out, the only solid evidence offered of Early's wealth or lack of it was $4,020 that police found in a clothes hamper when they raided his apartment. And among the money were marked bills that an informant had just used to buy heroin.

After that informant and nine other witnesses testified that they bought or sold heroin with Early, jurors took just over an hour to find him guilty on four charges: one of conspiring to distribute heroin, two of distribution and one of attempting to possess heroin.

The verdict means that Early, 39, could face decades in prison when he is sentenced July 17.

Early is expected to be the only one among 11 people charged in three loosely tied recent federal heroin cases to take his case before a jury. Six people have pleaded guilty to charges linked to heroin distribution. Four remaining defendants are scheduled to plead guilty next week.

Prosecutors and police said earlier this year that the cases stemmed in part from renewed concerns about increasing heroin use among young people in and around Roanoke.

In March, 19-year-old Michael John Duggins Jr., who was indicted with Early, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin. On his cellphone, prosecutors said, had been the numbers of 27 customers, most of them in their teens and 20s.

Earlier this month, Cynthia Kaye Nichols, 41, pleaded guilty to supplying the heroin that led to a serious injury in a case that involved the nonfatal overdoses of two teenagers.

Witnesses at Early's trial gave a series of somber accounts of how heroin use had affected them, including withdrawal sickness, prison terms and problems with families and work.

Julia Rader, who last year pleaded guilty in Roanoke Circuit Court to possessing heroin, said she started on the drug as a 15-year-old after encountering other users when her band played frequently at the old Factory 324 nightclub. Eventually, her supplier was Clifton Dwight "Lite" Lee, who was indicted with Early and who pleaded guilty last month to distribution and firearms charges. Rader, now 23, said she was present when Lee got heroin from Early.

Melinda Salisbury, 24, said she tried heroin in her early 20s "and I didn't stop." She said she worked closely with Early and helped him distribute the drug until police raided her home in July 2007. She later pleaded guilty in Roanoke Circuit Court to possessing heroin and served more than a year in jail.

Salisbury was among a parade of witnesses who said they accompanied Early or made trips at his direction to New Jersey to buy heroin in bulk.

Numerous witnesses spoke of Early's own use of heroin and cocaine. Salisbury said that Early became a fearful recluse who first tried not to leave his home, then took up residence in Ohio after police raided his apartment in Roanoke.

Wolthuis told jurors that a conservative estimate of Early's activities indicated he helped bring more than 23,000 bags of the drug to the area.

"You can't put a human price on the ruined lives, the ruined families, that would flow from that," Wolthuis said.