Josh Meltzer l | The Roanoke Times

Ronald Trantham is preparing to serve a 30-month sentence in federal prison after being caught up in the Henry County Sheriff's Office scandal last year. Trantham says he bought drugs only for personal use from a federal informant in 2000.

Video: See a video interview with Trantham.

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The Henry County case in a nutshell

• Federal investigators looking into an international network of illegal prescription drug sales find William Randall Reed, a Henry County man who is dealing ketamine that he orders online from India. Reed offers information about wrongdoing within the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, triggering a federal probe, then indictments last Halloween of 20 people.
• Henry County defendants include former Sheriff Frank Cassell and a dozen of his officers.
• Seventeen Henry County defendants pleaded guilty, two have been placed in pretrial diversion agreements that can clear their charges after a year of good behavior, and one is awaiting a jury trial.
• The online pharmacy case that triggered the Henry County investigation is still wrapping up in federal court in Philadelphia.

Henry County defendants

SENTENCED

• Former Sheriff Frank Cassell, making a false statement to investigators: eight months in prison, $15,000 fine, to report to the U.S. penitentiary in Canaan, Pa., on Oct. 30
• Former Sgt. Patrick David Martin, possessing stolen firearms: three months, to report to the federal detention center in Miami on Oct. 30
• Former Deputy Bradley Scott Martin, racketeering and conspiring to distribute ketamine and steroids: 33 months, $5,000, to report to the federal correctional center in Miami on Oct. 30
• Former Deputy Steven Varion Preston, conspiring to distribute ketamine and steroids: 30 days, to report to Roanoke City Jail on Nov. 7
• Former Deputy Walter R. Hairston, racketeering: 30 months, to report to the federal prison camp in Duluth, Minn., on Nov. 6
• Former Deputy Cornelia Bryant Cox, making a false statement: two years’ probation
• Former postal worker Kandy D. Hubbard Deshazo, making a false statement: two years’ probation
• Former state probation officer Carlton Arnez Riley, attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute it: 57 months Riley, who is in federal custody but who has not yet been assigned to a prison, has appealed his sentence.
• Ronald Dean Trantham, racketeering and making a false statement: 30 months, to report to Morgantown, W.Va., by Nov. 8
• Ginger Renee Lewis, possessing ketamine with intent to distribute it: two years’ probation

AWAITING SENTENCING

• Former Sgt. James Alden Vaught, a central figure in the scandal who taped conversations with other defendants and who pleaded guilty to racketeering.
• Former vice officer and school resource officer David Allan King, racketeering and conspiring to distribute ketamine and steroids.
• Former Maj. James Harold Keaton, possessing a stolen firearm.
• Former vice officer Travis Todd Wilkins, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
• Wilbert Herman Brown, racketeering and making a false statement.
• Mark Anthony Roberson, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. This is the same gun that Wilkins, Burton and Jonathan Roberson are charged with possessing. Mark Roberson’s case was continued — or essentially frozen — during his sentencing hearing, and prosecutors said they were reconsidering it.
• William Randall Reed, racketeering. Reed also will be sentenced for his involvement in selling ketamine as part of a massive online pharmacy case prosecuted in federal court in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia case triggered the Henry County arrests.

CHARGES TO BE DROPPED AFTER A YEAR'S GOOD BEHAVIOR

• Former Deputy Jason Allen Burton, possessing a rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches long that had been modified to automatic fire capability and had an obliterated serial number
• Former Deputy Jonathan K. Roberson, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number

SCHEDULED FOR TRIAL STARTING OCT. 30:

• Former Sgt. Robert Keith Adams, accused of assisting and concealing cocaine distribution, encouraging a witness to make false statements and making false statements himself.

Regrets.

A veteran cop who was planning to change careers, but not like this.

A high school wrestler and bodybuilder who'd always wanted to go into law enforcement -- and whose steroid use brought him down.

A jack-of-all-trades construction worker who thought he had left his drug problems behind.

The first defendants from the corruption case that engulfed Henry County's sheriff's office last year are getting their letters from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. As they prepared to serve their sentences, three of the 10 people sentenced so far paused to talk about what they'd hoped to do -- and how it all went wrong.

'I don't want to be known as a corrupt officer.'

Patrick "Rock" David Martin is 46, four years shy of what he had figured would be his retirement age. He joined the sheriff's office in 1985 after working construction for a few years, and he slowly moved up from working in the jail to a spot as a road deputy. In 2003, he was promoted to sergeant and took charge of the department's drug enforcement actions.

The new job was a high-pressure one. Administrative duties doubled his work day, and after a year, he and Susan, his wife of more than 20 years, agreed that the stress was affecting their family.

"I said, 'Honey, I'm so close to retirement. When I get to 50, I'll quit then,' " Martin said last week.

A craftsman with a knack for tinkering, Martin's plan was to make a profession of cabinetry and furniture-making, hobbies he'd polished to a high degree of skill.

What he did not plan on was getting snared by a federal probe that targeted drug dealing by Henry County officers, then spread to other misdeeds.

Martin said he had known there was a department file on steroid use by Deputy Bradley Scott Martin, who is not related to Patrick Martin. But he said he knew nothing about other crimes within the department -- and did not think he was doing anything wrong, either.

Patrick Martin was accused of taking evidence home: VCRs and video cameras, chain saws, even a riding lawn mower. Most were items seized in raids on crack houses, Martin and others said.

Only rarely did someone come forward to claim the items, so consumer goods literally stacked up in the corners of the sheriff's office. In court, Martin said he did not know any officers who did not store items in their cars or homes. When the department prepared for an accreditation review, senior officers said to just clear the office, Martin testified.

For years, seized items moved through their house, being stored or worked on, then returned to be sold as surplus or reused, Patrick and Susan Martin said in court.

But prosecutors said they doubted Martin planned to bring back some of the items.

He pleaded guilty to possessing two stolen guns and got a three-month sentence.

After he was fired from the sheriff's office last year, he launched his furniture and cabinetry business, hiring a fellow defendant, former sheriff's Maj. James Harold Keaton.

Last week Martin was racing to complete several jobs before he had to leave for prison. Smoothly detailed hickory doors waited for finish in the shop next to his house; rows of cabinets took shape among the power tools.

Martin said he has been overwhelmed by the support Henry County residents have shown since his case began. A petition that protests his sentence is making the rounds. Friends and his church have given him money. People have volunteered to keep his business going while he's in prison, and a relative plans to double the size of his shop while he's away.

"People I don't even know have called," Martin said.

But as of last week, Martin said he had not figured out how to tell the youngest of his three daughters, who is 8, that he is going to prison.

"I don't want to be known as a corrupt officer," Martin said.

'It was just a vanity thing.'

Bradley Scott Martin said he started working out as a teenager. A high school wrestler, he got an early taste of the degree to which the body can be sculpted: As a junior, he wrestled at 205 pounds; in his senior year, he dropped to 178.

But it wasn't until he was 23 that he started using steroids.

"It was just a vanity thing," Brad Martin said. "I just look at steroids like plastic surgery."

Competing as a bodybuilder, he discovered that the drugs gave him an edge. "It helps you maintain lean muscle mass while on a strict diet," he explained.

Growing up in Henry County, his lifelong dream was to work in law enforcement. He became a prison guard in North Carolina, then joined the Henry County Sheriff's Office in 2000.

William Randall Reed, who would become a major figure in the corruption scandal, became a bigger part of his life. He already knew Reed, whose wife he'd gone to high school with, and Reed also used steroids. Brad Martin began buying them from him. Prosecutors say that the two began ordering steroids from Mexico and selling them in local gyms, and that their customers included Officers Steven Varion Preston and Walter Hairston.

Now 34, Brad Martin said he blames himself for his fall. His steroid use tied him to people who dealt in harder drugs, he said. He played a role in ketamine transactions by another of the case's major players, sheriff's office Sgt. James Vaught, whom he'd known since they were children.

Reed was receiving drugs at a house owned by Vaught. Brad Martin said he would pass along word that Reed was leaving drugs for Vaught at the house.

"If I had it all to do over again," he said of his role, "I wish I'd been deaf."

Brad Martin pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiring to distribute steroids and ketamine. He was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison and fined $5,000.

Divorced and remarried since federal investigators moved in, and now the father of a 2-year-old, Brad Martin said he plans to serve his time and return to Martinsville.

'Just think I'm going to college, Mom.'

Ronald Dean Trantham had a rough time accepting that he might spend 50 years in prison.

"If I didn't have the Lord in my life, I don't know how I'd have got through it," Trantham said. "I'd contemplated eating a bullet, pulling a Peter Pan off a building."

A 47-year-old Fieldale native, Trantham said he worked all manner of construction jobs after serving a few years in the Army a quarter-century ago. Most recently he worked for a company that installs industrial sprinkler systems and for himself as a stonemason. He lives with his girlfriend of 25 years, Desiree Martin -- Brad Martin's older sister -- in a house next to his mother, whose home is where he grew up.

Then came the investigation of the Henry County Sheriff's Office, to which Trantham was connected on several levels.

First, he considered Brad Martin his brother-in-law. And like Brad Martin, he'd known Vaught since childhood.

And for a six-month-or-so period about seven years ago, Trantham said during his sentencing hearing last month, he bought marijuana and cocaine from Vaught. Trantham described it as a temporary lapse -- that he decided drugs were no good for him and cut his ties with Vaught.

Prosecutors said that Trantham's drug involvement went beyond use, and that he was Vaught and Reed's partner in drug-selling. When he denied it on the stand, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bassford said new and stiffer sentencing guidelines should be calculated because Trantham, who had pleaded guilty to racketeering and lying to an investigator, was not accepting responsibility.

U.S. District Judge James Turk seemed to disagree, however, and sentenced Trantham to 30 months in prison, the low end of the guidelines.

Last week at his house, Trantham shifted between resignation and hope as he imagined what lies ahead. He looked around at his collection of hunting trophies, at a meticulously clean living room, and said he'll miss hunting and spending time at home.

His initial despair is gone, Trantham insisted, and he came up with a way for his family to think about his approaching absence: "Just think I'm going to college, Mom."

An active volunteer at his church and its food pantry in the past year, Trantham said he is relying on religious faith and local roots to get him through the next 2¹₂ years.

"I was born and raised here," Trantham said. "I'm going to come back like it never happened. ... Everybody's got a mistake in their life."