How Sweet It Is: Orphans to Get Contraband From Moonshiners

Federal revenue agents say they are giving 4,400 pounds of sugar from a moonshine raid to an orphanage, just in time for the chef to make extra holiday sweets for the children.

“It couldn’t be timed better,” said Bobby Cobbs, a spokesman at Virginia Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services in Salem.

“Normally, families do a lot of baking at Christmastime that they wouldn’t do at any other time of the year. We’ll go through this sugar rather quickly. We’ve been doing a lot of dreaming, figuring out what we can do with it.”

U.S. District Judge James C. Turk filed an order Wednesday allowing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to dispose of the sugar, along with 100 pounds of wheat bran, two pounds of yeast and 576 one-gallon jugs seized in a moonshine investigation.

Defendants William G. Stanley, Ricky L. Dent and Michael K. Crook are to be tried Jan. 18 on charges of illegally running a still and possessing mash and untaxed liquor. Lawyers reached an agreement that will allow the government to use the sugar as evidence even though it will have been given to the orphans.

The federal agent in charge of the Roanoke bureau, Jim Silvey, said authorities wanted to put the sugar to use instead of letting it go to waste in a storage bin.