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The first of the drug defendants in the Henry County Sheriff's Office corruption scandal came up for sentencing Thursday.

But the man who launched the Martinsville crackdown through involvement in what has been described as the Drug Enforcement Administration's largest online pharmacy bust wasn't there. William Randall Reed's sentencing was set for Thursday, but was delayed by paperwork from his guilty plea in a massive international drug sales case prosecuted by federal authorities in Philadelphia.

That left former Deputy Steven Varion Preston and Henry County residents Ronald Dean Trantham and Ginger Renee Lewis to become the latest among 20 defendants in the corruption case to learn their penalties.

All three were part of a network of drug sales that involved Reed, former Sgt. James Alden Vaught and others.

Lewis, 29, had pleaded guilty to possessing ketamine with intent to distribute it. Her attorney, Allen Dudley, said she'd been led astray by Vaught, who like Reed later aided investigators as they looked into crimes in and around the sheriff's office. Lewis drew two years of probation.

Trantham, who had pleaded guilty to racketeering and making a false statement to investigators, received 30 months in prison, the longest sentence yet handed down in the Henry County case.

Trantham, a stonemason who was 46 years old at the time of last year's mass indictment, seemed intent Thursday on correcting the record of his actions. He said he bought drugs from Vaught but only for his own use, not for resale. And he said he'd stopped using drugs in 2001.

Preston, who was 37 when indicted in October, had pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine and steroids.

"I'd like to move on and you'll never see me again," Preston said after apologizing to his family and to Henry County residents. His attorney, Chris Kowalczuk, asked for a sentence of probation.

"I feel you need to get a taste of what jail is like," U.S. District Judge James Turk said and imposed 30 days incarceration, with credit for the day or several days Preston served earlier.

In a charge that was dropped as part of Preston's plea agreement, prosecutors said the deputy had tipped Reed to avoid a ketamine delivery that authorities were watching.

It was Reed's acceptance of a drug delivery, at a home he rented from Vaught and which was used for a variety of illicit activities, that sparked the Henry County case.

Reed was named in a Philadelphia case involving illicit online sales of millions of doses of prescription and other medications. He'd turned to Web sites supplied by the Bansals, a father and son team of doctors from India, to buy ketamine.

Known as "Special K," ketamine is an animal tranquilizer. It also is used as an anesthetic by paramedics and in operations on children, because it does not depress breathing, said Frank Costello, an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia who prosecuted the Bansal case.

Ketamine is used recreationally, sometimes as a comedown after taking Ecstasy. And it has a reputation as a date rape drug because it can paralyze and impair memory.

According to court documents filed in Philadelphia, Reed, going by the online name "millerlight," bought at least 20 kilograms of ketamine to sell to others.

"I wouldn't call him a minor player," Costello said.

Court files included a 2004 e-mail Reed wrote to Brij Bhusan Bansal, saying, "I know you probably get tired of me saying that, but as long as my cousin can sell them at the rate he is going, I hate for the business with this product to stop. If there is anyway you can get them in the US without taking major risks, that would be outstanding for ALL of us. Believe me, there is ALOT of money for us to still make!"

Filed in 2005, the Philadelphia case is still winding out. Reed was accused of conspiring to import and distribute controlled substances and testified most recently in Philadelphia in June 2006, months before the Henry County charges were announced.

His sentencing in the Philadelphia case was transferred to Roanoke, where he has pleaded guilty to racketeering.

When paperwork is completed, he will be sentenced in both cases, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant said.