Three former Robeson County deputies have been charged with pirating satellite TV service.

The charges were added to a federal indictment unsealed in June that accuses C.T. Strickland, Roger Taylor and Steven Lovin of stealing drug money, arson, beating up suspected drug dealers and distributing cocaine and marijuana from 1996 to 2004.

The indictment is part of a four-year investigation called Operation Tarnished Badge. The investigation, by state and federal lawmen, has led to charges against 11 deputies and two Lumberton police officers. Six of the 11 deputies have pleaded guilty.

A December trial date for Strickland, Taylor and Lovin has been postponed.

The additional charges in the 12-count indictment say the three former deputies conspired with others to possess modified telecommunications equipment. That equipment was used to illegally program satellite TV cards to receive unauthorized service. Counterfeit cards also were made and sold to people, the indictment says.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Robeson County Sheriff Ken Sealey and District Attorney Johnson Britt could not be reached for comment. It is not known whether other deputies will be charged with satellite TV piracy.

Generally, thieves steal satellite TV services by altering the commands of a programmable card inside each subscriber’s control box. The card allows the programmer to block channels, such as pay-per-view sports and movies, that the subscriber does not want to pay for.

Pirates alter or clone the cards to allow access to all of a provider’s channels, said Jimmy Schaeffler, chief executive of The Carmel Group, a telecommunications consulting company in California.

The federal government is cracking down on the pirates, who cause legal subscribers to pay more for services, Schaeffler said.

“These are serious federal agents who go after this stuff,� he said. The Robeson County deputies “picked the wrong thing to do at the wrong time, if they did it.�

Two years ago, Gerald Strickland, a close relative of C.T. Strickland, was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay $49,380 in restitution to DirecTV for making and selling counterfeit satellite cards from his business, Prospect Satellite Sales and Services. After finishing his sentence, Gerald Strickland was allowed to return to work at the Robeson County Health Department.

The U.S. Secret Service investigated Gerald Strickland’s case. A Secret Service agent at the Wilmington office could not be reached for comment.

Schaeffler said piracy of satellite television cost DirecTV hundreds of millions of dollars annually before the nation’s largest provider figured out a way to stop the thefts in 2004. EchoStar, which owns the No. 2 provider, Dish Network, still has widespread problems with piracy, Schaeffler said.

Schaeffler said he finds it troubling that people sworn to uphold the law are accused of stealing satellite TV programming.

“It’s a shame when those who are in control of the system take advantage of it,� he said. “One could argue that those kinds of people should pay the highest price because they are in a position to get away with it for a long, long time, maybe forever.�