Winston-Salem Journal, journalnow.com
BYLINE: MICHAEL HEWLETT | Winston-Salem Journal, mhewlett@wsjournal.com
Link to Article

Davie County, NC

2011-05-05_INT_Former evidence technician for Davie sheriffs office sentenced_01
MALINDA YORK Credit: York

A former evidence technician for the Davie County Sheriff's Office was sentenced Tuesday to more than two years in federal prison on drug-distribution charges.

Malinda York pleaded guilty last year to charges that she conspired to distribute 5 grams or more of crack cocaine and to possession of a firearm in the furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Boggs dismissed the firearms charge so York was sentenced only on the drug-distribution charge. She would have faced a five-year mandatory minimum sentence on the firearms charge, said Chris Clifton, her attorney.

Prosecutors alleged that York was stealing drugs from the evidence room and giving them to Bobby Lee Mabe Jr., a former Davie County sheriff's deputy with whom she was having an affair.

York was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Greensboro to two years and nine months in federal prison. After release, she will be on supervised release for four years.

York apologized for her actions in U.S. District Court in Greensboro on Tuesday, Clifton said.

Mabe pleaded guilty in September to being an unlawful user of controlled substances while possessing firearms and with maintaining a drug-involved premises. He was sentenced in March to 18 months in federal prison. Mabe and York resigned their positions with the sheriff's office.

The State Bureau of Investigation was contacted Sept. 22, 2009, after Mabe's wife found bags of marijuana in Mabe's patrol car. She had been searching his car for evidence that he was having an affair, according to court records.

York told authorities that she stole small amounts of crack cocaine involved in five to 15 different investigations from the evidence room on June 26, 2009, and July 17, 2009.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
International Association for Property and Evidence
"Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement"
www.IAPE.org