'The Wire's Snoop Facing Drug Charges

Mar. 15, 2011— -- Fame is a double-edged sword, as actress Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, who played a murderous member of a Baltimore drug gang on the hit HBO series "The Wire," has discovered.

Since her role as Snoop ended with the series in 2008, Pearson, 30, has had few new job offers, but some serious brushes with the law.

Currently, she is being held in a Baltimore jail without bail on charges of conspiring to sell heroin. She was arrested on March 10, along with 38 others, during a predawn raid at her home in Baltimore following a five-month Drug Enforcement Agency operation.

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Pearson denies the charges and her lawyer Paul Gardner told ABCNews.com, "She's in good spirits, though she's a little dismayed at being in this position that she didn't place herself in. She's been squeaky clean."

But for now it appears that her role as a drug dealer and assassin on the HBO show is working against her.

According to the Baltimore Sun, when the prosecutor argued during last Friday's bail hearing that Pearson travels frequently for her job, the actress shot back angrily, "How can I go anywhere? Everybody knows my name."

That was precisely the reason, Judge John Addison Howard responded, why he was withholding bail. "You are a good actress," he said, according to the Sun. "Everybody knows your name. People change names. They also can …"

Pearson interrupted: "I can't change my face."

"Well, you can change your appearance," the judge said. "I've seen the episodes of 'The Wire' in which you appear. You look very different than you do here today, and I'm not talking about the jumpsuit. I'm talking about your general appearance."

Gardner, who filed a motion for a bail review, called the judge's decision "unusual." "I disrespectfully disagree," he told ABCNews.com. "Felicia looks exactly exactly the same as she has the last five years -- just how she looked on 'The Wire.'"

According to The Associated Press, Pearson was one of 64 people charged last Thursday in "Operation Usual Suspects," a joint state-federal prosecution of an alleged east Baltimore drug gang. The actress is facing state charges of conspiring with two men to distribute heroin as well as aiding and abetting.

Gardner believes Pearson's case is one of "guilt by association or talking to the wrong people." He said according to the allegation, she was recorded discussing money but "she could have been talking about buying dinner."