Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 17, 1993 TAG: 9309170262
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Gilmore, Henrico County commonwealth's attorney, was among four Richmond-area prosecutors who asked Terry in a March 1988 meeting to order a state police investigation into alleged drug activities of then-Commonwealth's Attorney Lynn C. Brownley of Westmoreland County.
In letters sent in March and April 1988 to Terry's office, the prosecutors threatened to go to former Gov. Gerald Baliles to seek the investigation because their request to Terry had gone unanswered for seven weeks.
The prosecutors also threatened to turn over information they had received about Brownley to the Virginia State Bar.
Records provided Thursday by Attorney General Stephen Rosenthal showed that Terry, now the Democratic nominee for governor, met with state police to discuss the Brownley case the day after Gilmore and his colleagues told her of the allegations.
Terry received three reports from state police investigators in subsequent weeks, the records show, before verbally authorizing, on May 5, 1988, the "sting" operation that led to Brownley's arrest May 25.
Brownley, 40, pleaded guilty to cocaine possession, spent weekends in jail for six months and was placed on probation for 10 years.
"We believe we gave her substantial information. . . . This was a pattern of foot-dragging by her," Gilmore said. "I thought she believed this was a hot potato, and she was unwilling to investigate or proceed because it was politically sensitive."
Terry's press secretary, Jay Marlin, said Terry "moved aggressively and appropriately . . . in this unprecedented sting operation against a sitting commonwealth's attorney. For Gilmore to raise this is really a nonissue. They're not the AG [attorney general]. That was her job, to determine if there was enough evidence to authorize a state police investigation."
An April 1988 letter from Rosenthal to the prosecutors, written in reply to their inquiry about the status of their request, said Terry's office was pursuing the case, but that all requests for investigations of elected officials "are held in the strictest confidence." Rosenthal was Terry's deputy at the time and head of the office's criminal investigations.
Marlin also denied charges by one of Gilmore's assistant prosecutors, John Alderman, who also attended the 1988 meeting, that party politics were tied into Terry's actions.
"That's a baseless charge made during an election to smear the Democratic gubernatorial candidate," Marlin said.
William Davenport, Chesterfield County's prosecutor and another participant in the meeting, said he recalled tensions between Terry and Gilmore, but "I don't think there's any political motivation on anybody's part."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB