FOUR FORMER PRICHARD OFFICERS SENTENCED

Three Will Serve Prison Terms; Fourth Gets Probation

His voice breaking and his head hung low, former Prichard narcotics
detective Nathan McDuffie stood before his friends, family and a federal
judge Tuesday in Mobile and sought mercy for having been a dirty cop.

"I disgraced police officers across the nation," McDuffie said quietly as
some of his supporters began to weep. "I put to shame a city that was
already rocking from its own financial troubles and woes."

McDuffie and two of his former superiors -- former Lt. James Stallworth Jr.
and former Sgt. John Stuckey -- received short prison terms for their part
in a shakedown scheme that involved most of Prichard's narcotics unit.
Chief U.S. District Judge Charles Butler Jr. also sentenced another former
detective, Derek Gillis, to two years of probation.

The four pleaded guilty in January to various charges relating to a
months-long conspiracy to take cash from drug suspects in exchange for
letting them go. A federal jury convicted two other former Prichard
detectives -- Anthony Diaz and Frederick Pippins -- later that month. They
await sentencing later this month.

FBI agents arrested all six men last August after a federal grand jury
indicted them on 25 charges including extortion and crack cocaine
distribution. A federal investigation had targeted the troubled police
department for more than a year leading up to the indictment.

The six went on trial together in October, but a deadlocked jury forced a
mistrial after two weeks of testimony and three days of deliberations.
Stallworth, Stuckey, Gillis and McDuffie pleaded guilty on the eve of their
retrial.

Prosecutors told jurors the six betrayed the people of Prichard when the
city needed them most. Between 1999 and last year, the city -- Mobile
County's poorest but second-largest -- filed for bankruptcy and saw its
mayor and two city council members elected officials forced out of office
by the district attorney.

During much of that time, the police department went without a chief. The
Stuckey-led narcotics unit included the four detectives and answered to
Stallworth, who headed the criminal investigation division as well as the
internal affairs and property sections. Those responsibilities have since
been divided under Chief Sammie Brown, who took the reins amid the federal
investigation.

As part of the plea deals, McDuffie and the others agreed to cooperate with
prosecutors in the retrial of Pippins and Diaz. McDuffie, though, lied to
investigators during a subsequent interview in an attempt to protect his
former partners.

"I wanted to admit to what I had done without involving anybody else," he
explained to the judge. "... No matter what mistakes we made, you know, you
develop a bond with these men that you have to face death with, in many
instances."

McDuffie was to have spent four months in a halfway house and another four
at home on electronic monitoring, according to the deal he cut with
prosecutors. Because he lied in the interview, however, prosecutors asked
the judge to imprison McDuffie for more than two years. Butler sentenced
McDuffie to 21 months in prison.

Prosecutors also asked Butler to stiffen the terms of the deal Stallworth
had made, citing Stallworth's changing testimony in the retrial. Stallworth
was to have gotten three years in prison, but prosecutors asked Butler to
make it about four. Butler declined, however, and Stallworth got the
three-year term.

Stallworth apologized briefly to the judge, then shook the hand of Ed
Michel, the FBI agent who led the investigation against him, as he walked
out of the courtroom.

Stuckey, still recovering from back surgery, leaned heavily on a
copper-colored cane as he walked in and out. Butler allowed him to receive
his 2-year sentence while sitting down. Stuckey made no remarks, nor did
Gillis.

Stallworth and McDuffie also will have to jointly repay to the police
department $10,000 that Stallworth testified he, McDuffie and Pippins took
from a California cocaine dealer. Pippins is expected to get the same
condition.

Stallworth additionally owes $1,000 from a separate incident, and Gillis
owes $882 from yet another, Butler ruled.