Pubdate: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 1999 Roanoke Times
Contact:  201 W. Campbell Ave., Roanoke, Va. 24010
Website: http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/index.html
Author: Michael Hemphill

EX-INFORMANT'S MOTHER TO FORFEIT $20,449 FOR ROLE IN
PRISON-DRUG CASE

Jury Orders Ethel Fulcher To Pay Under Federal Laws

An Investigator Said He Didn't Know How Much Of $15,402 Was For Porn
Magazines, Pop Tarts, Cigarettes And Chewing Gum That Michael Fulcher
Also Sold From His Cell.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The mother of former Drug Enforcement Administration informant Michael
Fulcher must forfeit $20,449 to the federal government for helping her
son launder proceeds from his marijuana trafficking inside a state
prison.

The U.S. District Court jury, which last week convicted Ethel V.
Fulcher, ordered the 65-year-old Roanoke County woman Monday to pay
the money under federal forfeiture laws enacted to take profit out of
crime.

Del Crowell, a state Department of Corrections investigator, testified
at Monday's hearing that he had traced about $66,000 in inmate money
orders going out of Bland Correctional Center from 1995 to 1997 to
Michael Fulcher and his drug-dealing accomplices.

Only $15,402 of that amount went to the Fulchers, and Crowell admitted
to defense attorney David Baugh that he didn't know how much of that
was for the porn magazines, Pop Tarts, cigarettes and chewing gum that
Fulcher also sold from his cell "store box."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott countered that any money order
payments that mixed legal proceeds with the illegal still could be
forfeited under a legal principle called commingling. Mott asked the
jury for the full amount, claiming Ethel Fulcher as a member of the
money-laundering conspiracy was "jointly and severally liable for what
the other conspirators do."

Despite the $66,000 claim, U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser limited
the amount the jury could consider forfeiting to $49,953, the sum Mott
alleged in the indictment.

Ethel Fulcher still faces prison time when she is sentenced later this
year. She and Fulcher's wife, Rosanna Sue Nichols, were found guilty
Friday of conspiring to launder money -- defined as the attempt to
conceal drug proceeds or use the proceeds to promote more drug deals.
They were acquitted, however, of conspiring to sell marijuana, a
verdict that barred prosecutors from seeking to have forfeited Ethel
Fulcher's Plantation Road home.

Michael Fulcher, 40, was convicted of both conspiracy charges and
continuing a criminal enterprise, sometimes referred to as being a
drug kingpin. He faces life in prison at his sentencing. What landed
him in Bland was a 48-year sentence for various theft convictions in
Bedford County. 

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