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

“We think of school as a place of education,” Amherst Sheriff Jimmy Ayers said. “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 2006 and 2007. He helped lead the team to back-to-back state titles in his junior and senior years 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 in February. How the charges will affect his scholarship is unclear. Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer, who was in Georgia on Friday, said he would not make a statement on Rose’s situation until he finds out all the details, according to Tech sports information director Dave Smith.

Scott Abell, the former Lancers head football coach who recently left to become the offensive coordinator at Washington & Lee, released a statement Friday saying he is “surprised and shocked” and that Rose had “never given anyone a day’s trouble. We’re going to pray for him and his family right now.”

Another student charged — Jody Vaughn Ramsey, 18 — is a senior and the starting catcher for the Lancers varsity baseball team. He was charged with one count of distribution of marijuana. 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 were processed at the Amherst County Jail and released on bond.

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 exhausted other means.”

Walker said he hopes 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 will be known to the charged students since she will be involved in their court hearings.

He said the use of an undercover deputy helped to infiltrate the drug distribution ring with more success 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 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 23 years old, Ayers said.

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

School is out of session for the summer on May 30.

Staff writer Nathan Warters and Amherst New Era Progress staff writer Laura Clark contributed to this report.