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It was this cash shortage that caused him to sell two used speakers and a cassette deck to Massie, he said, addressing the check for $1,130. The check for $530 was actually repayment of a $600 loan he’d “fronted” Massie to buy cocaine, with $70 for a discounted gram subtracted, the dentist said.
“Why in the world would somebody in your profession, your position, mess around with and trust somebody like George Massie?” the prosecutor asked.
“I’m not proud of being a user,” Peper replied, explaining that he felt comfortable with Nicholson and Massie because he could call them and obtain cocaine.
‘Dope, dopers and people who mess with dope’
“This trial is about dope, dopers and people who mess with dope,” said Alderman in his closing argument Tuesday. Massie, Nicholson and Peper have “abused it, used it, sold it and bought it. The question boils down to who’s who.”
Neither the defendant nor the star witnesses - all admitted drug abusers - looked the type. Cleanshaven and clean-cut, they were diestamped from the preppie mold in camel and navy blazers and a herringbone sports jacket, their hairlines ending a neat inch above their collars. In fact, the narcotics detective from the Richmond Police Department and the special agents from the Virginia State Police, in casual dress and with hair long enough to brush their shoulders, fit the stereotype of the drug culture’s enlistees much better.
Addressing Nicholson’s and Massie’s credibility, Alderman told the jury: “The Commonwealth didn’t select the witnesses; Denis Peper did. They’re his buddies. He certainly trusted them. He certainly believed them. He certainly relied on them. Now what he wants is for you to disbelieve them . .. They told the story the way it happened.”
When Peper directed Massie to pick up the cocaine at Nicholson’s, “right then and there, Denis Peper committed the crime of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The agreement was complete and the crime was complete,” Alderman said.
He acknowledged that Nicholson and Massie “got an incredible deal.” Nicholson was sentenced to 40 years in the penitentiary and then that prison term was suspended and 12 months in jail was substituted instead. “That probably offends you,” Alderman conceded to the jurors.
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