February 07, 2006 (original story...)
LUMBERTON - A former news reporter with WBTW-13 in Lumberton was arrested Wednesday by federal agents and charged with five counts of wire tapping.
Shea Ann DeJarnette was taken into custody at her Lumberton home, according to Tim Gannon, a senior agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Fayetteville.
DeJarnette, 36, appeared in federal court in Fayetteville on Wednesday wearing street clothes and leg shackles.
Magistrate Judge William Webb released DeJarnette at the end of the proceedings, and the leg shackles were removed. She remains free on an unsecured bond as long as she reports to a federal probation office as required.
DeJarnette ignored questions from reporters as she left the courthouse. She could not be reached for comment.
Gannon declined to give a motive for the wiretap, which allegedly took place between January 2001 to March 2002.
The charge doesn't say whose conversations she recorded, but sources tell The Robesonian the victim was Tasha Oxendine, a fellow reporter at the WBTW bureau office in Lumberton. Oxendine and DeJarnette were co-workers at WBTW from 1994 to 2002. Oxendine still works at of the bureau, but DeJarnette left that job in 2002.
DeJarnette was the girlfriend of Robeson County sheriff's drug agent James Woodrow "J.W." Jacobs at the time, but the indictment does not name Jacobs. Jacobs pled no contest in January to a misdemeanor for failing to discharge his duties and was given a 45-day suspended sentence and a year of probation. Jacobs had been facing felony obstruction of justice charges. He no longer works at the Sheriff's Office.
Elisabeth Regan, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, also declined to provide any details.
The indictment accuses DeJarnette of possessing a tape recorder, a telephone recording control device and a two-line telephone adapter for the illegal purpose of wiretapping.
In North Carolina, it is a crime to use any device to "overhear, record, amplify or transmit" any part of the private conversation of others without the consent of at least one of the parties. One-party consent means that someone may lawfully record his own conversations. He may also record conversations of other people as long as he has received permission from at least one party to do so.
Wiretapping is a federal offense. DeJarnette could face a maximum of 25 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine.
Oxendine referred questions about the case to the station in Florence, S.C., but Michael Pumo, vice president and general manager of WBTW-13, would only say, "We were aware of a criminal investigation and we cannot comment further."
DeJarnette now works as a 4-H extension agent with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service in Lumberton. Everett Davis, director of the agency, says her job status remains the same.
