By Timothy O'Hara
and Howard Unger
STAFF WRITERS

After months of pressure from federal and state investigators, the last former sheriff's deputy implicated in the Delta Unit corruption case has admitted to evidence planting, theft and civil rights violations.

Former Manatee County deputy Christopher Wilson has agreed to plead guilty to several felony charges in a deal with federal prosecutors, according to documents filed in federal court Monday. His admission comes the same day that former Delta agent Lance Carpenter was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for his role in planting evidence and falsifying arrest reports.

Wilson's plea does not signal the end of the two-year federal investigation into the sheriff's drug eradication unit.

"The investigation is ongoing," Florida Department of Law Enforcement supervisor Charles Guthrie said Monday. "We will go where the evidence takes us."

More details showing the Delta agents' hubris were revealed in Monday's court session in Tampa.

Wilson and former Delta agent Paul Maass framed a man and arrested him because they wanted his car, according to Wilson's plea agreement.

The agents planted crack cocaine in Scott Shepard's 1996 Ford Mustang because Maass wanted the black muscle car for "his own use in the Delta unit as well as for his personal use," according to the plea agreement.

Wilson and Maass were searching the home of a suspected Bradenton prostitute on Nov. 17, 1997, when they saw the Mustang.

Shepard gave them consent to search his car. The deputies planted crack inside, then wrote in their arrest report that they had "found" 0.3 grams of crack inside a Tylenol bottle.

Shepard was arrested on drug possession charges and his Mustang GT was seized under a Florida statute that allows the state to take drug dealers' and users' vehicles.

Maass and Wilson state in their report that Shepard admitted buying the drugs from a man in Sarasota.

The Rochester, N.Y., native said he wasn't sure where he got it; he was just driving around a "bad area" looking for crack, the deputies wrote.

Shepard, represented by Bradenton attorney Mark Lipinski, pleaded no contest to possession of cocaine in May 1998 and was sentenced to 18 months' probation.

Shepard's mother, Jane Ritter of Siesta Key, is familiar with the ongoing Delta investigation but did not know that her son's case was being reviewed.

Ritter was unaware that her son was vindicated Monday in federal court. Shepard could not be reached for comment.

"I knew it was Wilson who arrested my son," his mother said. "I knew it was him who set him up."

Shepard's car was seized, but it was unclear Monday night whether Maass or other agents used it.

Three days prior to Shepard's arrest, Maass, Wilson, Carpenter and other agents planted evidence on then Bradenton resident Sarah Smith in a scheme similar to the one used on Shepard.

Smith, like Shepard, had no prior felony arrests. She served house arrest and more than 30 days in jail after agents planted a Tylenol bottle containing crack cocaine in her home. She also lost custody of her 1-year-old daughter.

She has had the arrest expunged from her criminal record and received a $270,000 settlement from the Sheriff's Office.

Carpenter, who participated in the evidence-planting against Smith, sobbed through most of his sentencing hearing Monday.

In addition to his prison term, he was ordered to pay $2,765 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.

Smith, who was in the courtroom, was elated by Carpenter's sentence but believes that Wilson was the ringleader.

"He's the worst of all," she said. "He's the bad apple. They saved the worst for last."

As a result of a two-year inquiry by federal authorities, Carpenter, Wilson, Maass and former Delta agents Thomas Wooten and Sgt. Wayne Wyckoff have pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, drug and civil rights violations. Former road Deputy Christopher L. Moore pleaded guilty to conspiracy and civil rights violations.

Most have admitted planting crack cocaine on suspected drug dealers, a practice agents called "insurance," their plea agreements state.

One of the dealers that Delta agents targeted, Larren "Perry" Wade, filed a complaint against Delta after he accused them of stealing $9,000 during a search of his hotel room on Feb. 27, 1998.

Wilson admitted to federal authorities that he and Maass took money from Wade and gave some of it to Wooten later that night.

Federal investigators later recorded Maass and Wilson talking about the theft and how to keep it a secret from a federal grand jury. Authorities had Maass wear a recording device.

Wilson has agreed to plead guilty to one charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights, two charges of deprivation of civil rights and three charges of conspiracy to distribute and possess crack cocaine.

Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment Monday night.

Wilson's July 1998 arrest on state charges sparked the wide-ranging federal investigation. Wilson was charged with aggravated assault and aggravated battery in connection with the Wade case. He was later acquitted.