Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993 TAG: 9311160164
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Medium
The difference Monday was that Wells had no handcuffed murder suspect in his grasp.
Instead, Wells was accompanied by two attorneys hired to fight a request by the Roanoke Times & World-News to gain access to his department's bank records.
Inside the courtroom, attorney John Alford argued that Wells was not trying to hide anything by refusing to release records from a bank account used for the Sheriff's Department payroll.
Wells simply was trying to make sure that records sought by the newspaper do not contain confidential tax information about his employees, Alford said.
"I do not want to give out any information that will put [Wells] in any more hot water than the media has already put him in," Alford said during a hearing before Lynchburg Circuit Judge Mosby G. Perrow III.
Perrow said he would rule today on the newspaper's motion to force Wells to comply with a request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
An audit report released last week revealed that Wells used a personal checking account to handle Sheriff's Department payroll. Bedford County officials say the interest-bearing account contained a $30,000 balance at the close of the fiscal year June 30.
Walter J. Kucharski, the state's auditor of public accounts, has said Wells must return any interest earned on public money.
Kucharski said that Wells could be guilty of a misdemeanor if he wrote payroll checks and personal checks from the same account.
A state law prohibits the commingling of public and private money.
A criminal investigation of the checking account, which the Bedford County Board of Supervisors requested last week, has yet to begin. An investigation of an elected official cannot get under way without the approval of Gov. Douglas Wilder or Attorney General Stephen Rosenthal.
Perrow noted that under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, Wells could refuse to turn over the bank account records once a criminal investigation begins.
John E. Falcone, an attorney for the Roanoke Time & World-News, said that time was of the essence if the newspaper is to get access to the bank records.
"You want to get there first?" Perrow asked.
"Certainly, your honor," Falcone said.
Falcone noted that Wells has failed to respond to the newspaper's Oct. 18 request for nearly a month, even though the law requires a reply within five working days.
Wells, who has been Bedford County's top lawman since 1974, declined comment after the hearing.
by CNB