A federal magistrate Tuesday ordered the former Bethel police chief to remain in jail pending court action on federal drug and weapons charges, but he set bond for another officer.
Reginald Laverne Roberts, 41, who was suspended last week as police chief of the small Pitt County town, should not be released because he is a threat to public safety and a flight risk, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Daniel ruled. Roberts has been in jail since his arrest last week on charges of conspiracy, distributing crack cocaine and selling a weapon to a felon.
Daniel said Jerome Earl Cox, 31, a police lieutenant who was also suspended, was "slightly less" of a flight risk because of community ties, including his pregnant wife. Daniel said Cox could be released under house arrest and $100,000 bond.
Both men, law officers in Bethel for about five years, were brought to court for a hearing Tuesday in baggy, orange jail jumpsuits.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Bennett argued the men had abused the public trust and had taken part in illegal activities. He said the case includes audio and video surveillance of the men stealing drugs and money in deals with a known felon who was working with investigators.
Bennett characterized Roberts as the instigator. Referring to testimony that Roberts used the nickname "DE MAN" on a personalized license plate, Bennett said that actually "what he was was the thief, crook, drug dealer."
Donald E. Cowart, an FBI agent, testified that investigators worked with a cooperating witness, who was not named, after receiving information about possible crimes in the Bethel department. He described two occasions when Roberts sold firearms to felons. He also said that Cox had broken into a storage building and taken money and that both men broke into a truck and took drugs and money.
According to charges, Roberts and Cox gave the cooperating witness a small amount of crack cocaine and $290 from the truck and split another $1,700.
Roberts' attorney, federal public defender Tony Martin, argued that the prosecution had relied on an unnamed convicted felon who was paid more than $1,000 by the government. "He was actually making a living off of this," Martin said.
Cox's attorney, Blackwell Stith of New Bern, told Daniel that Cox worked part-time with a Greenville church. He said supporters, many of whom attended the session, would help the family.