Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE AND ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
An inmate at Southampton Correctional Center last year conned an assistant warden and several other prison employees into smuggling him alcohol, Chinese takeout and even a cellular telephone.
Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against several corrections employees in connection with what could become another embarrassing security breach on the watch of Gov. George Allen.
The Southampton inmate, Braxton Lee Bumpers, had several employees at the maximum-security prison doing favors for him after convincing them he was about to inherit $1 million and would repay their kindness, a state police report says.
The state Department of Corrections caught wind of the situation almost immediately in July 1994. But Bumpers was able to keep the scam going for two more months after telling an internal affairs officer that he could uncover further corruption within the agency.
"They set up a `sting' operation to determine just which employees at the Department of Corrections were involved," said Jerry Kilgore, Allen's public safety secretary.
The department suspended Assistant Warden James C. Farrow without pay pending the outcome of a state police investigation and has taken a "wait and see" approach to other Southampton employees, Kilgore said. Farrow could not be reached for comment.
A higher-ranking agency officer has taken a voluntary demotion, though Kilgore would not say if it was related to the sting operation.
Kilgore said the case is in the hands of Southampton prosecutors, who are weighing possible criminal charges.
The Southampton security breach is detailed in a state police report dated March 23 and obtained this week by The Roanoke Times.
The revelations could not come at a worse time for the Allen administration, which has been trying to shake several high-profile incidents, including the discovery of a gun in the typewriter of a death row inmate.
Bumpers is a smooth-talking 27-year-old whose petty, outrageous exploits have made him almost a legend in his hometown of Newport News.
"He's a phenomenon," said Bob Thomas, a used-car dealer who was duped by Bumpers nearly a decade ago. "In the back of your mind you know he's up to something wrong, but you can't help but to like him."
Bumpers - serving eight years for grand larceny - even has experience conning jail guards.
While serving time at the Newport News City Jail, Bumpers - then 18 - ran an investment business out of his cell, enlisting guards to place ads and make phone calls. Police shut him down after Bumpers complained to jail officials that the guards were ripping him off. Two guards were fired.
A month after his release, Bumpers took $1,100 from a woman in Newport News who believed he was a real estate agent. The woman had been trying to sell her house, and Bumpers said he needed the money as a processing fee to close the deal.
He later was apprehended in Washington, D.C., where he was found impersonating a Capitol Hill lobbyist and staying in a $300-a-night room.
Washington Detective Joseph Oh nabbed Bumpers after recognizing his distinctive round face from a faxed mugshot. When he was spotted, Bumpers was wearing a cowboy hat and sticking his head through the sunroof of a white limousine and "waving like the president."
"I remember him, because when I heard his story I couldn't believe it,'' Oh said. "Corrections officers bought into his story. That was so stupid of them.''
It is unclear if prison guards at Southampton Correctional Center knew about Bumpers' reputation when he arrived in 1993.
"Obviously not," Kilgore said, "Now I understand that he has a sort of history of pulling scams."
Bumpers' activities at Southampton - which give new meaning to the term "cell" phone - were detailed in the state police report:
In early 1994, Bumpers spread the rumor that his grandmother had willed him $1 million.
He turned to Farrow, the assistant warden for programs, for help in hiring a stockbroker and accountant. Farrow directed one of his staffers to notarize documents for Bumpers, contact a local accountant and give Bumpers unlimited use of the office telephone, the state police report says.
"This backdrop of apparent legitimacy was necessary in order to expand [the scheme], perpetuate it and draw other employees into it," the state police report says.
One person who got a phone call was Brenton Burgess, an accountant in nearby Franklin who eventually visited Bumpers.
During a meeting at the prison, Bumpers picked up the phone and called the Newport News Circuit Court to make arrangements for his inheritance, Burgess said.
"From my half of the conversation, everything sounded right," Burgess recalled in an interview. "He used all the right terms and asked all the right questions."
But on the other end of the phone was deputy clerk Robin Welch, who remembers the call differently.
"I just told him we didn't know anything about it,'' Welch said Tuesday.
Burgess returned the following day with an attorney.
"We spent half a day with him, and when we walked out we both said 'There's nothing here. He's lying,''' Burgess said.
"He was real good. It was very, very easy to get swallowed up in his story. He was very, very convincing - real personable, not threatening in any way. He's just a real good con artist.''
Back in the prison, Bumpers was able to dispel any doubts about his story - thanks in part to an internal investigator with the Department of Corrections.
On July 26, 1994, investigator Dewey Evans arrived at Southampton to look into reports of Bumpers' unusual activities.
Bumpers confessed, but not before promising Evans that he could become an informant in a "sting" to uncover what he described as high-level corruption within the Department of Corrections.
On Aug. 4, 1994, Evans circulated the word that internal affairs had confirmed that Bumpers was to receive an inheritance. To give the story further legitimacy, Evans arranged to open a checking account for Bumpers at Crestar Bank.
Bumpers wrote two checks - one for $100,000, the other for $150,000 - even though the account had $100 and Evans had "specifically instructed Bumpers not to write any checks on the account unless he had funds to cover them."
Crestar refused to honor the checks.
On Aug. 18, 1994, events gained momentum when Farrow, according to the state police report, smuggled the cellular phone to Bumpers.
Bumpers phoned relatives of other inmates and asked them to wire cash to his mother in Newport News and to a prison employee who used the money to bring him takeout food.
He called a former prison employee, directed him to open a commercial bank account for "BLB Enterprises" and write a $27,265 check for a Toyota Camry to a Virginia Beach dealership. (The former employee returned the car after he realized there was no money in the bank account.)
Bumpers said he kept his phone stashed in a barn where he worked in the prison's cattle operation.
Evans, the internal affairs officer, learned about the cellular phone in late August, but allowed Bumpers to keep using it until mid-September.
Records show that Bumpers made more than 900 calls and ran up a $1,500 bill. The bill remained unpaid as recently as March.
The sting operation wound down in September, after Bumpers made a tape-recorded bribe offer to a supervisor in the Department of Corrections. The man did not accept the bribe, but did not report it to authorities and became an object of the state police investigation.
Bumpers, who has been transferred to Powhatan Correctional Center near Richmond, claims that the Southampton guards gave him liquor and the cellular telephone to keep him quiet about what he described as cattle rustling by prison employees.
"They said, `I know you know what is going on with the cows. We'll give you a cut if you'll keep your mouth shut,''' Bumpers said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Bumpers first made the allegation to prison officials in June 1994. The director of agriculture at Southampton denied it and offered to take a polygraph test to clear up the matter, according to the state police report.
Jon Frank of Landmark News Service contributed information to this story.
by CNB