By HOLLY GATLING
State Staff Writer

Five men linked with one of the country’s largest cocaine and marijuana smuggling rackets pleaded guilty Thursday shortly before prosecutors and defense attorneys began selecting jurors for eight others charged in the case.

The five, who will be sentenced later, are expected to testify in the drug racketeering trail of accused ringleaders Newby Franklin Love of Columbia and Sue Robinson Youngblood of Stone Mountain, Ga.

Also on trial charged with participating in the enterprise are Sumter car dealer Robert E. Lee, three Latin American nationals and two Charleston brothers.

Love, Ms. Youngblood, Lee and the three South Americans were arrested Dec. 21, 1982, with the seizure of 955 pounds of cocaine at the Sumter County Airport.

Others were indicted in the case as the investigation progressed.

On Thursday Millard Waites, 48, and Kenneth Davidson, 29, who were indicted with Love and Ms. Youngblood, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import marijuana.

Waites and Davidson said they worked last August to prepare a private airstrip in Sumter County where a plane loaded with marijuana was expected to land.

Waites said that Love asked him to fix up the landing strip and that he did it because he owed Love money. Davidson, who said he worked for Waites, admitted he assisted Waites with the project because he owed Waites money.

The plane, expected in Sumter on Aug. 16, ran out of fuel in Sarasota, Fla., according to Lt. Robert Stewart, a State Law Enforcement Division agent. The plane was found abandoned with 1,600 pounds of marijuana still aboard, Stewart said.

Waites and Davidson have criminal records for drug offenses and face possible sentences of 10 years in prison and $30,000 fines when they are sentenced.

They are free under bonds of $100,000 and $50,000, respectively.

Another man, 29-year-old Wilber Rutledge “Rusty” Corvette Jr. of Columbia, said Thursday that he committed armed robberies for Love to help finance the locally based drug smuggling ventures.

“I was involved in a group that smuggled marijuana into South Carolina,” he told U.S. District Judge Lloyd MacMahon, a visiting judge from New York, who heard the guilty please Thursday morning.

“I did armed robberies,” Corvette continued, “taking money from people in order to invest it to bring marijuana in from South America.”

Corvette and Richard Wayne Rogers, 32, a Camden mechanic, said they met with Love at the Blaney Drag Strip in Elgin last June 16 to await the arrival of a plane load of marijuana.

Love had lights for the makeshift Kershaw County landing strip and a radio to communicate with the pilot, according to FBI Agent Paul Cavanaugh. The radio malfunctioned, however, and the pilot landed his plane with 541 pounds of marijuana at Owens Field in Columbia.

Cavanaugh said investigators found the plane based on a tip from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. Fingerprints and maps led authorities to charge Timothy Roy

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Rivera of California, Cavanaugh said.

Rivera posted a $9,000 bond in California and fled. His bond has been revoked but he has not been located.

Corvette is being held without bond. Rogers will be allowed to remain free on bond.

The fifth person involved in the please Thursday was Bruce L. Schultze, who pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute about a half-ounce of cocaine.

The 34-year-old Columbian, who had degrees in natural science and fine arts, was arrested Dec. 17m 1982, after Richland County sheriff’s deputies raided his hoe and confiscated 13.5 grams of cocaine.

By 7 p.m., two women and a man had been chosen to serve on the jury.

U. S. District Judge Charles E. Simons Jr. ordered the jury selection to continue late into the evening, and members of the jury pool were to spend the night in a motel.

Despite the seriousness of the proceedings, the defendants and their attorneys seemed in a good mood.

As the group broke for supper, Love asked the judge if the defendants could have a pizza – which he said he’d pay for – instead of hamburgers, which Love said they were all tired of eating.

Simons asked a U. S. marshal to provide them with pizza another night; dinner Thursday night already had been ordered.

As Lee left the courtroom with the other defendants, his wife smiled ad waved and said, “You want to go out to eat tonight?”

Lee grinned and said, “No, thanks, I think I’m gonna stay in tonight.”