Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 31, 1993 TAG: 9303310130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GRUNDY LENGTH: Medium
A Buchanan County jury recommended that Arvil Ratliff serve two years in prison after convicting him of misappropriating public funds and finding him innocent of two misdemeanor charges involving record keeping.
Ratliff is the first of the supervisors indicted in 1991 to be tried on the mileage charges. He is the only one of the seven still in office.
Mileage charges were dropped against Supervisors William P. Harris and Earl Scott. Charges are pending against Paul Elswick, Edgar Baker Jr., Roger Smith and Gary Rose. Their cases are scheduled for the April-May court term. Harris and Scott were convicted of misappropriating public funds in separate embezzlement cases.
Special prosecutors Gerald Gray and Robert Galumbeck said the mileage reimbursement sheets were prepared by secretaries who had no information from Ratliff as to where he traveled and the distance he traveled.
"Two thousand dollars a year . . . tax free . . . that's what he took from the people of Buchanan County," Gray told the jury.
Defense attorney Carl McAfee said the method the supervisors used for mileage reimbursement was selected before Ratliff was elected. McAfee told the jury the prosecutors did not prove his client did not travel the number of miles submitted.
Greta Sexton, a billing clerk for the county administrator's office, testified that when she began her job, a card was on her desk that described the mileage policy. She said supervisors were to be compensated for at least 2,186 miles every three months but not more than 2,205 miles.
Sexton said she received no information from Ratliff. "I went in and just put dates beside the roads and miles," she said.
In a previous trial, Ratliff was found innocent of misappropriating funds to repair a private bridge.
by CNB