Deputies framed co-worker’s romantic rival with planted heroin and meth, lawsuit claims

In April 2019, when Anson County deputy David Scott Burroughs was charged with planting heroin and other drugs in the car of the man dating his ex-girlfriend, Sheriff Landric Reid credited his office with unraveling the plot.

But a new federal lawsuit claims that up to four of Reid’s deputies joined the effort to frame Burroughs’ romantic rival, Ray Kifer. What started as a smoldering love-triangle quickly escalated into what the complaint describes as a law-enforcement conspiracy involving “conscience-shocking misconduct.”

Charlotte attorney Sonya Pfeiffer, part of Kifer’s legal team, argues that the facts of the case make it unlikely that Burroughs acted alone, as the sheriff maintains.

“How is it possible that all of these people were duped by David Scott Burroughs?” Pfeiffer told the Observer this week after filing Kifer’s complaint. “I just think there are too many people involved for this to be as simple as Burroughs did it all on his own.”

Burroughs, whom Reid fired after his arrest, still faces an array of felony charges in connection with the case. Now, he is a defendant in Kifer’s lawsuit, along with Anson deputies David Spencer, Kyle Beam, Josh Beam and Jimmy Williams. An unnamed federal agent who the lawsuit claims took part in Kifer’s seizure and interrogation also is included in the complaint.

Some or all were part of the plot to retaliate against Kifer for his relationship with a woman who had previously dated Burroughs, the lawsuit claims.

“We all have seen how power corrupts, but we all want to believe that law enforcement acts in our best interests,” Pfeiffer said. “Nobody wants to believe that something like this can happen.”

Reid did not respond to Observer emails seeking comment about the lawsuit, in particular its central allegation that multiple officers were involved in Burroughs’ retaliation plot against Kifer.

The case brought national headlines to Anson County, a largely rural community 50 miles southeast of Charlotte.

The alleged abuse of law enforcement power there began to shape in January 2018 when the woman — whom the Observer is not naming — ended her relationship with Burroughs. She soon began dating Kifer, who is not in law enforcement.

The breakup transformed Burroughs into a jealous vigilante, according to the complaint. The deputy began regularly cruising through the woman’s neighborhood or showing up at social events to which he was not invited, and on one such occasion, he threatened Kifer in person while in his patrol car, the lawsuit claims.

Later that same night, Burroughs crept up to the woman’s bedroom window and recorded the sounds of her and Kifer making love. He then played the recording to his co-workers at the sheriff’s office, the lawsuit claims.

On March 7, the alleged police harassment took a new turn. As Kifer drove his girlfriend to her job, deputy David Spencer, a friend of Burroughs’, pulled up on his rear bumper, trailed Kifer’s car for a time, then turned off, according to the complaint.

After Kifer dropped the woman off and headed returning home, Spencer returned, his siren and blue lights running.

According to the lawsuit, Spencer told Kifer he had been speeding. Then the deputy said he smelled marijuana inside Kifer’s car. Kifer said both allegations were untrue. More deputies and the federal agent began showing up at the scene. Kifer was handcuffed and put in a sheriff’s office SUV, the lawsuit claims.

Here, the descriptions of events between the sheriff and Kifer clash on a key point.

At the time of Burroughs’ arrest, Reid said his deputies had received a tip days before that Kifer was dealing drugs out of his car, as well as where he had stashed his contraband inside the vehicle. Reid said the drugs had been found exactly where the tipster said they would be, days before.

“This started on a Sunday afternoon,” Reid said, according to WSOC. “By Wednesday, when we made the stop, drugs were at the same place in the car. That was a red flag because anyone selling drugs wouldn’t have them Sunday to Wednesday in the same place.”

But Kifer’s lawsuit alleges that more of the deputies were involved in his framing. The complaint describes a mysterious stop the deputies made with Kifer on their way to the sheriff’s office — outside a nondescript building near a small airstrip. According to the lawsuit, Kifer believed he was about to be killed.

Instead, he was told that Josh Beam, a narcotics investigator, had to pick up something — the drugs to frame Kifer, the complaint alleges.

During a subsequent two-hour interrogation at the sheriff’s office, Kifer denied any knowledge about dealing drugs. According to the lawsuit, Kifer was taken to a magistrate’s office, where the deputies said he would be formally charged.

Instead, he was led to a waiting room where his father and stepmother soon joined him. Without warning, the lawsuit claims, Spencer and Josh Beam entered the room and told Kifer that his charges had been dropped and his car would be returned.

A month later, the State Bureau of Investigation told Kifer that Burroughs had planted the drugs in his car. More than a year later, Burroughs was charged with making a false police report, obstructing justice, breaking and entering a motor vehicle, along with possession of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine. He is scheduled to be in court Feb. 10.

Reece Saunders, district attorney for Anson, Richmond and Scotland counties, said Wednesday he cannot comment on a pending case.

According to WSOC, Reid said he was grateful his detectives had discovered Burroughs’ plot before anyone’s life was ruined.

“This was a revenge case where he planted drugs in this male’s car,” Reid said. “This male was dating his ex, and he wanted revenge, and he wanted his ex-girlfriend back.”

According to lawsuit, however, Kifer remains under treatment for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, conditions that make it difficult for him to hold a job.

His lawsuit accuses the defendants of constitutional violations, false arrest, unlawful seizure, gross negligence and intentional/reckless infliction of emotional distress. Kifer has requested a jury trial. If one occurs, it would take place in Charlotte.

Kifer would have to travel a significant distance to reach the courtroom. Shortly after the Anson County incident, he and his girlfriend left the state.