Amherst deputy’s undercover guise as student yields drug busts

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 marijuana and two counts of distribution of drugs within 1,000 feet of the school.

“We think of school as a place of education,” said Amherst Sheriff Jimmy Ayers. “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 the 2006-2007 school year. He helped lead the team to back-to-back state titles in his junior and senior year 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 this spring.

Jody Vaughn Ramsey, 18, was charged with one count of distribution of marijuana.

Ramsey is a senior at Amherst County High School and is the starting catcher for the Lancer varsity baseball team. 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 are being processed at the Amherst County Jail.

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 ex-hausted other means.”

Walker said he hopes that 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 she will be known to the stu-dents involved since she will be involved in their court hearings.

She started at the beginning of the school year, enrolled as a senior. School is out of session for the summer on May 30.

Ayers said the use of an undercover deputy helped to infiltrate the drug distribution ring with more suc-cess 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 of the 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 in her early 20s, Ayers said.

“She’s just glad it’s over with,” he said.

Staff writer Laura Clark contributed to this report.