Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

William Randall Reed was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in prison for a rackateering charge in federal court in Henry County.

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 the Halloween 2006 indictment of 20 people.
• Henry County defendants include former Sheriff Frank Cassell and a dozen of his officers.
• Seventeen Henry County defendants pleaded guilty, two were placed in pretrial diversion agreements that can clear their charges after a year of good behavior, and one was convicted by a jury.
• The online pharmacy case that triggered the Henry County investigation was prosecuted in federal court in Philadelphia. Most sentencings in that case concluded last month, though some defendants remain fugitives.

Special report

• Read past stories on the Henry County indictments

Both prosecution and defense credited William Randall Reed on Tuesday with triggering the corruption investigation that tore apart the Henry County Sheriff's Office more than a year ago.

But there was less agreement about the penalty Reed, 35, deserved for his own misdeeds. He was the central point in a web of drug dealing, connecting members of the sheriff's office and an international ring that illegally sold prescription drugs over the Internet.

"I've done a lot of bad things and I just want to make amends for it," Reed said before being sentenced in federal court. His voice breaking, he apologized to his wife and 2¹₂-year-old daughter.

"I don't want my name and drugs to be used in the same sentence again," he said.

U.S. District Court Judge James Turk set Reed's punishment at a year and a day in prison.

"I think you're getting off mighty lucky," Turk said.

Reed's attorney, Pat Sharpe of Martinsville, painted his client as a weightlifter who got caught up in using steroids and eventually in brokering sales of other drugs.

He knew Bradley Scott Martin, a weightlifter and bodybuilder who also used steroids, and when Martin became a Henry County deputy the pair began acquiring steroids together and selling to other officers, Sharpe said.

By 2003, Reed, who worked at Bassett Furniture, had turned to the Internet to buy steroids and ketamine, an anesthetic used recreationally and called a "date rape drug," from a doctor in India and his son in Philadelphia.

As authorities moved in on the international operation, they snared various customers, including a buyer in Martinsville who signed his e-mails "MillerLite." This turned out to be Reed. He was arrested after accepting a shipment of ketamine at a house he rented from Sgt. James Vaught of the Henry County Sheriff's Office.

Tuesday's sole witness was Deborah Reed, who said she learned of her husband's activities in March 2005 when she returned from work and found her home full of federal officers. Eight and a half months pregnant, she later had an emergency Caesarean section she credited to the upset.

William Reed left the family twice, she said, because he "didn't want to see the anguish and the sorrow" he'd caused. Still, Deborah Reed said, she wanted to stick with her husband.

Sharpe said William Reed began cooperating immediately after his arrest. He told investigators that Vaught and others were involved in drug sales and other wrongdoing. He related how he had helped Vaught sell cocaine taken during a police search.

Vaught became an informant too and taped incriminating conversations with his former colleagues and others. On Halloween 2006, Sheriff Frank Cassell, a dozen of his officers and seven others were indicted on an array of charges.

Reed pleaded guilty to racketeering in the Henry County case. He pleaded guilty to three charges in the online pharmacy case in Philadelphia and testified twice there.

Vaught, who also pleaded guilty to racketeering, received probation. Tuesday's dispute was about how to compare him to Reed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bassford said Vaught put himself in greater danger. For Reed, Bassford asked for 18 months in prison.

Sentencing guidelines suggested 57 to 71 months for Reed's Henry County charge, and 24 to 30 months for the Philadelphia charges.

Turk said he was surprised the government was asking for only 18 months, then dropped it further.

"You'll be all right now," he told Reed.