Amherst deputy’s undercover guise as student yields drug busts
Amherst County Superintendent John Walker speaks during a press conference May 16 announcing drug charges against seven current and former high school students. Video by Carrie J. Sidener
Peter O’Brian Rose (left) and Jody Vaughn Ramsey were arrested this morning on marijuana distribution charges.
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By Carrie J. Sidener
Published: May 16, 2008
Seven Amherst County High School students face drug charges after a 10-month investigation in which a sheriff’s deputy posed as a student.
One of the students charged was 18-year-old Peter O’Brian Rose, the Lancers’ starting quarterback last year.
Rose was charged with two counts of distribution of drugs within 1,000 feet of the school, both felonies, and two counts of distribution of marijuana.
“We think of school as a place of education,” Amherst Sheriff Jimmy Ayers said. “It should be free of drugs and alcohol. This is not an easy thing when you are dealing with students.”
Rose was the Lancers’ starting quarterback in 2006 and 2007. He helped lead the team to back-to-back state titles in his junior and senior years and was named Virginia Group AA Player of the Year by the Associated Press and the Virginia High School League Coaches Association.
He signed a letter of intent with Virginia Tech in February. How the charges will affect his scholarship is unclear. Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer, who was in Georgia on Friday, said he would not make a statement on Rose’s situation until he finds out all the details, according to Tech sports information director Dave Smith.
Scott Abell, the former Lancers head football coach who recently left to become the offensive coordinator at Washington & Lee, released a statement Friday saying he is “surprised and shocked” and that Rose had “never given anyone a day’s trouble. We’re going to pray for him and his family right now.”
Another student charged — Jody Vaughn Ramsey, 18 — is a senior and the starting catcher for the Lancers varsity baseball team. He was charged with one count of distribution of marijuana. He was a top offensive player for the Lancers, batting .364 going into the Seminole District Tournament, which began Monday.
Ramsey’s coach, Mike Padgett, said during a pre-season interview that Ramsey had an offer to play baseball for Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville.
Four other students who were arrested were juveniles, and police have not released their names. A fifth student has been charged but not arrested. They face multiple drug charges, including marijuana distribution, imitation cocaine distribution, and distributing imitation controlled substances on school property.
“We will not in any way let this tarnish or diminish what we do,” said Amherst Schools Superintendent John Walker. “We will not be gauged by the activity of a very few individuals.”
The undercover deputy, whom Ayers declined to name, was enrolled at the high school as a senior at the start of this school year. She made 18 purchases from the seven students, and seven of those purchases were made on school property, authorities said.
Three of the juveniles arrested are held in the Lynchburg Detention Center. Rose and Ramsey were processed at the Amherst County Jail and released on bond.
Walker said the investigation began as a response of complaints received from students, parents and the community.
“We heard many concerns from students and parents about possible drug activity by Amherst High School students,” Walker said. “The overwhelming majority of students want our schools to be safe and conducive to learning.”
Ayers said the sheriff’s office has attempted twice before to put a deputy in undercover in the school system with “mixed results.”
“I don’t consider it a radical move,” Ayers said. “It is what it took to curb this activity and we had exhausted other means.”
Walker said he hopes this bust allowed them to reach these seven students early as well as serve to prevent others from following the same path.
“We can get them earlier, before the problems build,” Walker said. “This isn’t unique to Amherst County High School. When these students chose to participate, they put themselves and their classmates in danger and we can’t tolerate that.”
Ayers said the undercover officer is no longer in the school system and will be known to the charged students since she will be involved in their court hearings.
He said the use of an undercover deputy helped to infiltrate the drug distribution ring with more success than the school resource officers, drug-sniffing canines, and other deputies could.
Ayers said the undercover deputy made all the connections to purchase the drugs on school property, but some exchanges were made in other locations.
“It was a very limited number of people who knew about it,” Ayers said. “Not even the (school resource officers) knew about it.”
The deputy is 23 years old, Ayers said.
“She’s just glad its over with,” he said.
School is out of session for the summer on May 30.
Staff writer Nathan Warters and Amherst New Era Progress staff writer Laura Clark contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Bob P. ) on June 02, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Truthseeker, you do mean double jeopardy don’t you?
Posted by ( Truthseeker ) on May 30, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Hogtown Gal....Vance “Wilkerson”.....???Never heard of him!
Now, if you meant Vance Wilkins; I prefer not to be explicit with my knowledge of him in association with Jimmy Ayers.
I can say that both of them are shady, and they both live the mantra of ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
Did yu see whenVance was interviewed regarding his head office staff member, Claudia Tucker, when she was busted on a federal telephone eavesdropping/wiretap charge on a teleconference call for the Democratic Party of Virginia? She hustled into Richmond, with a former attorney general in tow, to get a lesser charge (misdemeanor) brought against her so she could plead guilty. Reason: Double indemnity; you can’t be charged for the same crime twice....she was worried that her charges would, after an investigation, be more serious (felonies) than what she was able to ‘arrange’. His response was basically, “That is how the game is played” In other words, he feels the end justifies the means, regardless of the legality issue. Moral scruples be damned!!
I really don’t know anything...I’m just a dumb country person.
Posted by ( hogtown gal ) on May 30, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Truthseeker, what do you know about Jimmy Ayers ties to Vance Wilkerson? Just curious
Posted by ( hogtown gal ) on May 29, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Truthseeker, You are so right about how the Amherst Sheriff’d dept does nothing about target practice in neighborhoods and/or at people, etc. In fact, they laugh about it and tell us it is ok as it is in a shooting zone. The irresponsible parents you refer to also allow their kids to taarget practice on the property of the main gas line which flows from North to South. I fear their stray bullets will blow Hogtown off the map!
Posted by ( Truthseeker ) on May 29, 2008 at 6:38 am
Come on now HogtownGal.....what’s wrong with some errant weapons fire going off someone else’s property and winding up precariously close to a neighbor? <sic> I mean, guns are safe, especially in the hands of irresponsible parents and kids who have a fascination about them. <sic> I know of several incidents where weapons were used to “target shoot” at other people and/or their homes, and even when evidence is there, testinmony given to a deputy, etc., the sheriff dept. does absolutely nothing about it. Not even a verbal chastisement....NOTHING! What he does do is harrass the citizens that are being victimized by perpetraitors, instead of it being the other way around. This goes back, in part, to his ties with Vance Wilkins. Jimmy Ayers needs to step down from his position as sheriff.
Posted by ( hogtown gal ) on May 28, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Truthseeker, I think you are onto something. I previously posted that I think these 2 cases are related. Since they broke within days of each other, I think they are for sure related. Maybe they are also a follow-up to the case of the drug dealer man who was found dead near the Parkway some months ago. We all know how the Amherst Sheriff’d dept. loves to investigate drug cases but will do nothing about citizen small complaints like target practice in neighborhoods, etc.
Posted by ( Truthseeker ) on May 28, 2008 at 6:56 am
Was Justin Davis the upper level supplier of the drugs being sold at Amherst High School? Just a thought.
Posted by ( crispy daisy ) on May 22, 2008 at 1:35 pm
LoneSheWolf adds one more excuse to the litany of them from people who have posted here. Everyone in the world seems to be to blame but the kids who decided to sell drugs. They are not little children, and they knew what they were doing was illegal.
I grew up in a loving, supportive home where there were consequences for breaking the rules. I had to work for my spending money, had a curfew, was expected to help around the house, study hard, etc. My parents were responsible, hard-working people who always let me know I was safe and loved. I went through a period of doing drugs anyway. I knew that it was wrong, I knew that my parents would be devastated if they found out, and I knew that I could go to jail if I got caught, but went right ahead and did it. My parents could not have provided a more loving and stable environment for me, but I still did plenty of things I shouldn’t have.
Sometimes, it is the parents’ fault when their kids do bad things, but it is not always true by any means, and it’s an unfair generalization to make. Once again, you’re removing blame from where it belongs—with the kids who made a conscious decision to sell drugs.
Posted by ( LoneSheWolf ) on May 22, 2008 at 5:32 am
It’s not about whats legal and whats not legal ... It’s about drugs being sold in schools thats not legal now nor was it when i went to school. What its really about is Kids are missing something in their lives at home...Parents fighting all the time in the homes or parents that do drugs and drink in front of their kids ...And alot of parents tell their kids that they are not woth anything… And not showing their kids love ... My opion is it falls on the parents not so much the kids.. If you show your kids love and compassion growing up they will turn out to love and not hate.. If kids grow up in drugs and hate and crime thats all a kid will know unless someone reaches out and helps him/her to walk the right road in life .....
Posted by ( damalama ) on May 21, 2008 at 4:41 pm
i have all ready gone into a long explanation on what i think and to try to understand the reasoning of these “people” that think it’s all a setup that the police are out to distory a innocent 18 year olds life that is a senior in high school. i don’t know how old some of these people are that are posting this non sense, but as for me i am not that far outta high school, there is no innocence anymore when it comes to “kids” in high school. every single one of them is aware of what they are doing, and find it funny the times they were doing something wrong and got away from the police either by foot or by car, where the beer is going to be on the weekend so they can get wasted and drive to laugh about it on monday, or to the least but just as serious “racers” that race other cars on public roadways at over 100 miles per hour video taping it inside and then showing it off. from where i went to, which was brookville, there were well established people you went to if you wanted drugs and everyone knew that, and the person that sold it was well aware of what they were doing and played the part, of intimidation, violence of not getting money, and violence on other “dealers”, like i said before you just don’t wake up and say i am going to sell some weed today and walk in the woods get it and sell it, you have to know and be well known to low life people that can give it to you and trust you enough to sell it and get their money back to them they deserve, so again how was this just a one time mistake?? i don’t know if the fairy tale world of every high schooler is an innocent ever existed, but i am talking of me just being out for a few years, and i am telling you it DOESN’T exist, teenagers today only play that card when busted cause they know there are suckers out there that still by it, like the court systems.