Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994 TAG: 9404130108
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Short
Billy Stephen Kerr, 36, was ordered to serve five years of a 12-year prison sentence after a brief hearing in Giles County Circuit Court Tuesday. After serving that time, he will be placed on probation.
Commonwealth's Attorney James Hartley told Circuit Judge Dow Owens that Kerr was charged after an investigation by the county's Sheriff's Office.
Members of the Fire Department complained to authorities after receiving a bank notice that an account was "overdrawn at a time when they thought they had thousands of dollars in the account," Hartley said.
A criminal complaint filed last fall stated that checking and savings account records as well as bingo receipts made Kerr a suspect.
Last fall, Fire Chief Jerry Gautier said Kerr had been suspended from the department after failing to attend meetings and for not turning over the checkbook and other financial records needed for a regular audit.
Kerr was treasurer over the department's bingo receipts and did not have oversight over public donations and county and town funds, Gautier said last fall. Instead, the bingo proceeds went into the department's building fund.
Hartley said an investigation showed that Kerr had gone to the bank on several occasions between June and September 1993 and written a Fire Department check payable to cash. Fire Department officials learned $26,520 was missing, Hartley said.
by CNB