Late WV State Police members Corporal Marshall Bailey and Trooper Eric Workman played pivotal role in building case against longtime Clay meth supplier
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A Clay County man who ran a pipeline that brought large quantities of methamphetamine from North Carolina to West Virginia was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin announced. Raymond Hersman, 47, of Wallback, W.Va., was previously convicted in May for selling methamphetamine. Herman’s sentence was handed down by United States District Court Judge Thomas E. Johnston.
“Raymond Hersman was a significant methamphetamine dealer in and around the Clay County, West Virginia area," U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said. “Today, instead of peddling poison, he’s going to prison."
Goodwin continued, “This is perhaps the last investigation on which the late Trooper Eric Workman and the late Corporal Marshall Bailey worked. The people of Clay County and of West Virginia are safer because of the brave and skilled work of these two dedicated officers."
According to evidence revealed during the three-day trial, law enforcement agents began investigating Hersman’s suspected meth distribution scheme in and around Clay County in August 2012. At the time, agents were aided in the investigation by West Virginia State Troopers Cpl. Marshall Bailey and Trooper Eric Workman. Cpl. Bailey and Tpr. Workman, both of whom patrolled the Clay County area, provided essential details to fellow law enforcement agents which outlined Hersman’s methamphetamine operation.
The information provided by Bailey and Workman assisted the investigation and culminated in the criminal conviction of Hersman in May.
Cpl. Marshall Bailey and Tpr. Eric Workman were shot and killed in the line of duty following a traffic stop near Clay County in late August 2012.
Hersman was previously convicted in April 1993 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
The West Virginia State Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Monica D. Coleman and John Frail handled the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
