Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 22, 1994 TAG: 9403220197
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
Sisler said he hoped to conclude the investigation ``in the next several days'' and report his findings to the board.
Sisler said he wanted the board to brief him on one area before he concluded his investigation. He declined to comment on what was discussed in the 90-minute executive session.
Sisler said Circuit Judge William Sweeney, who appointed Sisler as special prosecutor after Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney James Updike pulled himself off the case, instructed him to report his findings to the Board of Supervisors.
Sisler declined to say whether it was unusual for a judge to advise a prosecutor to report the findings of a criminal investigation to a local political body.
``I've been in that position before,'' he said.
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act allows local governing bodies to go into executive session to discuss, among other things, personnel and legal matters.
A reporter for the Roanoke Times & World-News questioned the legality of Monday's executive session, stating that the sheriff - who is elected by county residents - is not employed by the the board, so discussions involving his job should not be exempt from the act's open-meeting requirement.
The reporter further objected that the board should not go into executive session with Sisler to discuss legal matters because he, as a state prosecutor, is not the board's legal counsel.
The board's attorney, Johnny Overstreet, overruled the objections.
After the executive session, the board passed a motion saying it believed it had met legally. Supervisor Lucille Boggess said Sisler indicated he would give the board his report in seven to 10 days. She said he asked the board not to discuss publicly anything talked about in Monday's executive session.
Sisler was asked to look into Wells' financial dealings after a county audit found he commingled state and personal money and earned interest in the process.
The Bedford county treasurer gave Wells a check each month for more than $100,000 for his department's payroll. Wells then deposited the money in a personal account and wrote paychecks to his employees.
Wells waited until after 2 p.m. to pay most of his employees. The delay meant that those paychecks didn't clear until the next working day.
The longer the payroll sat in his personal checking account, the more interest Wells earned.
During the investigation, Wells turned over to authorities records on all bank accounts in his control.
The sheriff has admitted mixing personal and public funds in an account at Bedford Federal Savings Bank, but said he did so on the advice of a now-deceased state auditor.
In November, Wells said he operated under the assumption that he could keep any interest earned from his personal checking account.
Bank records show that the payroll float -- not Wells' personal funds -- was mainly responsible for the checking account's earning more than $5,500 in interest during the three years that ended in June.
"The interest off the account is clearly public money," Walter J. Kucharski, the state auditor of public accounts, said in November. "That money should go back to the county, without a doubt."
Kucharski said he was surprised that Wells, until last April, maintained his own payroll bank account, a practice that ended throughout most of Virginia in the 1960s. Wells was first elected in 1973.
Wells quit using the account in April, shortly after the General Assembly enacted a law restricting the type of bank accounts that sheriffs could control.
When the law was adopted, Wells was one of only two sheriffs in Virginia who still wrote their own payroll checks and maintained control of their own bank accounts, according to Wally Cox, the auditor for Bedford County.
In December, the supervisors voted to include all constitutional officers in the county's centralized payroll system.
by CNB