Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 13, 1992 TAG: 9201130109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Long
MOONSHINER SAYS BRIBES MAKE ALLIES OUT OF REVENUERS
A moonshiner sentenced to 10 years for bribing a law enforcement officer claims that Franklin County's illicit liquor industry is aided by revenue agents willing to look the other way.In secretly recorded conversations, Bobby Joe Whitlock bragged that he went about his business for years without fear of arrest because he paid off a federal agent.
"Every time someone was sitting behind a tree, I knowed," Whitlock was recorded as saying on one of several audio tapes released last week.
The Whitlock case harkens back to the Prohibition era, when federal authorities uncovered a vast conspiracy in which law enforcement officers were paid to protect the county's whiskey industry.
Despite Whitlock's claims, state police investigators have found no evidence of modern-day corruption among current or former officers assigned to a state Alcoholic Beverage Control task force.
"I would hope that it was a very limited problem and that we got rid of it," said John Wright, head of the ABC regulatory division in Richmond. "I have no reason to think otherwise at this point."
Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood said there was no reason to take Whitlock's allegations at face value because the moonshiner said a lot of things on the tapes that proved to be lies.
"He didn't exactly tell us the truth to begin with, so I don't know if you can believe much of that," Hapgood said.
Whitlock, 53, was arrested last summer following an undercover sting operation that included four hours of secretly recorded conversations between Whitlock and an ABC agent he was trying to recruit.
On the tapes, Whitlock said he knew when it was safe to work at his stills because he had bribed one federal revenue officer in the 1970s.
Whitlock said that after the officer's death, he continued to receive tips indirectly from a high-ranking ABC supervisor.
"I've walked away from a lot of places that he knew about through somebody else calling and saying, `Don't go.' "
Whitlock pleaded guilty to five counts of bribery and was sentenced last month to 10 years in prison.
State police launched the sting operation in December 1990, after Whitlock sauntered up to J.E. Beheler in the Rocky Mount ABC store and stuffed five $100 bills in the agent's pocket.
Beheler gave the money back and immediately went to Hapgood, who outfitted Beheler with a hidden microphone in case Whitlock tried again.
Sure enough, Whitlock arranged to meet Beheler the day after Christmas at a private cemetery near Burnt Chimney.
At one point, Whitlock handed Beheler an envelope containing $500.
Whitlock: That's your Christmas present.
Beheler: Five hundred - Jesus Christ!
Whitlock: I didn't give you a damn thing. You ain't seen me and I ain't seen you.
The deal was struck - Beheler would get $500 a month for helping to protect a still Whitlock was planning to fire up behind his home in the Crossroads community.
Whitlock sought to reassure a nervous-sounding Beheler, explaining how he had looked after a now-deceased ATF agent with a steady supply of money, cord wood and booze.
Whitlock: I ain't doing nothing right now, but when I do, I'll let you know, then I can start handing it to you.
Beheler: I ain't never took no money.
Whitlock: Goddamn, it's life. It's all the way it is any more.
The graveyard rendezvous was the first of 25 meetings and phone calls between December 1990 and July 1991. Whitlock mentioned the name of several other former law enforcement agents he claimed were on the take, but said he never paid them himself.
\ Ex-officer denies bribes
\ There were many references to V.K. Stoneman, a 31-year ABC veteran who retired in July as the department's top enforcement officer in Southwest Virginia.
Whitlock said he never bribed Stoneman, but sometimes got tips from others who said Stoneman was the source of the information.
"I've had some phone calls late at night telling me not to go somewhere," Whitlock said during one taped phone conversation. "You hear back where it come from. But I guess he didn't mean for them to call me."
In an interview, Stoneman flatly denied leaking information or accepting bribes during his years of work in the field and later as a supervisor.
"I challenge him [Whitlock] or anyone else to a polygraph test that I ever took a dime," Stoneman said. "It really hurts me to have people defame my character. When someone calls me a crook - that's fighting talk."
Stoneman said he was not surprised to learn his name had surfaced in the Whitlock case because of rumors that have been circulating for years. The rumors were spread, he said, by a disgruntled former ABC officer whom Stoneman fired in December 1979 for falsifying a report.
"He accused me of everything from chicken theft to murder," Stoneman said.
In 1980, the disgruntled employee complained to the FBI that Stoneman took equipment seized at stills for his personal use and gave preferential treatment to certain moonshine distributors, according to John Wright.
An FBI investigation turned up no evidence of bribes, Wright said.
Stoneman said he was convinced that Whitlock mentioned his name to make Beheler think that everyone - including his boss - took money on the side.
In the taped conversations, Beheler tried several times to see what Whitlock had to say about Stoneman, who was not told about the sting operation.
Whitlock repeatedly warned Beheler that Stoneman would ask about ongoing investigations after his retirement.
"Don't tell him nothing; then he can't pass anything on," Whitlock said in another phone conversation.
\ Bribery probe closed
\ Hapgood said he considered the bribery investigation closed for lack of evidence.
The one federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent Whitlock said he bribed is dead and Whitlock has refused to cooperate.
"I can't tell on nobody for nothing," Whitlock said after his arrest.
Hapgood said the truth may never be known.
"It's like a John LeCarre novel," he said. "You can read this any way you care. I've taken the position that nothing is true unless you can prove it."