THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090045
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR AND KERRY DeROCHI, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 268 lines
It should have been a routine response to a citizen's request.
Sandra R. Lewis demanded that her elected officials intervene in what she claimed was the unfair firing of her husband from the police force.
Convinced her complaints had gone unanswered, Lewis went to Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer, one of the most influential Republicans on the council. , seeking health insurance and a record of good standing for her husband.
But in the weeks that followed, the line between official and citizen blurred as Dwyer started a personal relationship with Lewis while negotiating for her husband's benefits in his public role as a council member.
Dwyer betrayed the trust of his colleagues and may have violated the boundaries of public service, some council members said.
Over time, Dwyer and Lewis exchanged daily phone calls, sharing confidences about their private lives, their relationships with their children and spouses. Dwyer left numerous and lengthy messages on Lewis' voice mail, begging to see her.
Dwyer got more comfortable with Lewis, even as she began secretly taping their conversations. Soon he was sharing secrets with her about the council, confiding about colleagues and detailing the policies and politics of development.
The exchanges grew more personal while Dwyer tried to negotiate Lewis' deal. He succeeded in meeting some of her demands.
He told Lewis to be patient. He promised her he would work on the rest.
``Why do you think I helped you?'' he asked Lewis in one recorded call.
``I think you helped me originally because it was a good cause,'' Lewis replied.
``But you think I got too emotionally tied up,'' Dwyer said.
``Yeah.''
Lewis has alleged that Dwyer demanded sexual favors from her in exchange for his help on behalf of her husband. And, in the conversations recorded between Dwyer and Lewis, the vice mayor derided his fellow council members in an attempt to impress her.
Dwyer, who said he did not know Lewis was taping their telephone conversations, denied he ever asked for sexual favors in exchange for his help.
In an interview Friday, he said he was the target of a ``vengeful woman'' who was out to bring down city hall.
Though he acknowledged making derogatory statements about colleagues and boasting of a friendship with a developer, he said the remarks were not true. He was simply bragging to ``impress this woman.''
``She made me believe she was someone who was a friend of mine, someone who cared about me,'' Dwyer said. ``Being naive, I guess, to situations like that, I believed her.
``Now, she's trying to destroy me.''
On Friday, a fellow Republican council member called Dwyer's actions inexcusable, even though he may not have violated the law.
Councilman John M. de Triquet said Dwyer's personal relationship is bound to have deep ramifications for the public relationship between government and citizens in Chesapeake.
``It is unethical . . . it ignores the charge that you are given by your oath. Your charge is to do the business of the city, and to separate personal issues from the business of the city.
``No individual is above the integrity of the citizens' council,'' de Triquet said. ``If the facts indicate to me that a breach of integrity or public trust exists . . . that individual does not deserve to remain in a position of public service.''
The controversy has threatened to destroy a newfound harmony among council members and could derail the career of one of Chesapeake's most powerful politicians.
Dwyer's relationship with Lewis and the content of the tape recordings caused Mayor William E. Ward last month to seek a review from local agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A spokesperson for the FBI acknowledged the agency had been contacted and that the recordings had been reviewed. But the FBI did not open an investigation, saying they didn't find any jurisdictional basis at this time.
The agency would not comment on the charges or whether it had attempted to analyze the recordings.
Councilman Alan P. Krasnoff said Saturday that Dwyer's conduct warranted an investigation by Commonwealth's Attorney David L. Williams.
``It's important that we restore the faith for our citizens in this city,'' Krasnoff said. ``Clearly there is a need by the commonwealth's attorney to at least look into this situation.''
Lewis, 30, a commercial scuba diver who lives with her husband, Ed, and their daughter, acknowledged she is not the most ``well-liked person in Great Bridge.''
With a history that includes twice shooting her husband, she said, she realized she would need more than her word against a vice mayor. She decided to tape Dwyer in an attempt to stop him from constantly calling her and pressuring her into a relationship. Now, she said, she wants him to step down from office, and she has asked the city to pay her $650,000 to end the ordeal.
``I couldn't stand it anymore. I realized this man was not going to give up,'' Lewis said in an interview. ``You can't just screw with people's lives, no matter high you are in government.''
Dwyer disputed Lewis' recounting of the relationship and said it was she who pursued him, badgering him with calls and even sending faxes to his home when she couldn't reach him.
Lewis first approached the City Council on Oct. 25 to complain of police corruption and the treatment given her husband.
Ed Lewis, 47, a sergeant and the head of the Chesapeake police diving team, had been fired on Dec. 31, 1993, for lying about a domestic incident at the couple's home in Great Bridge.
With more than 24 years of service, Lewis filed a grievance with the city's personnel department. A panel in May 1994 upheld the termination.
At the October council meeting, Sandra Lewis asked that the city clear her husband's record, retire him with honors and reinstate the family's medical benefits.
Council members Peter P. Duda and Robert T. Nance, the liaisons to the police department, were assigned to look into the issue.
Nance and Duda inquired at the police department and chose not to pursue Lewis' case.
In January, Sandra Lewis called Dwyer and Mayor Ward, threatening to return to the council to speak about the police department.
On Jan. 10, Dwyer summoned Lewis to his office on the sixth floor of City Hall. They met for two hours. Dwyer promised Lewis he would look into the matter.
The next morning, Lewis said, Dwyer called her at home.
Lewis said Dwyer asked her how often she would be available to meet with him. He asked her about her job, she said, and said he'd like to learn how to scuba dive.
Lewis said that what followed was a series of daily phone conversations that included repeated requests for lunch and dinner dates. She went along with him, she said, because it seemed to be the only way to get what she wanted.
``He would page me all the time,'' Lewis said. ``He told me even though getting your husband his retirement and his Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the right thing to do, no one else will help you down here but me.''
In late January, Lewis said, Dwyer called her and told her he was meeting the next morning with City Manager James W. Rein and Police Chief Ian M. Shipley Jr. Lewis said Dwyer asked that she come to his home in South Norfolk.
Lewis said she complied. There, she said, the vice mayor tried to pressure her into having sex.
``He said, here is how it is, I have something you want and you have something I want,'' Lewis said. ``I was insulted and shocked. He got very cold. It wasn't about sex; it was about power.
``He wasn't physically intimidating. But he had a power over me. He could make or break something that would affect the rest of my life.''
Lewis said the couple was interrupted by a telephone call and nothing happened. She left minutes later.
In an interview, Dwyer denied ever pressuring her to have sex. He said he had already agreed to help her with her husband's benefits because it ``was the right thing to do.''
He said that he developed a romantic relationship with her, though the two never became intimate.
``She'd call me and wake me up in the morning, she'd call me at work,'' Dwyer said. ``She would page. She would call me on the car phone when she would take her daughter to school.
``It was very flattering. I can't tell you I didn't enjoy the attention.''
On Feb. 14, at Dwyer's request, the council agreed to reinstate Ed Lewis' health insurance. They did not, however, retire him with full honors. Several council members said Dwyer never told them of his personal relationship with Lewis while he was pushing her case.
The next day, Feb. 15, Sandra Lewis began tape-recording Dwyer. Lewis provided The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star with copies of portions of those recordings last week.
She said she taped the conversations to keep Dwyer from pressuring her.
By that time, she said, Dwyer had become a nuisance. In the days following the council decision, she said, he called her constantly and had even followed her to a restaurant in Greenbrier.
Looking back, Dwyer said, it was clear she was taking revenge for his failing to get her all that she wanted.
``The woman, in my view, was determined to shake down the city of Chesapeake. She's a very vengeful woman,'' said Dwyer. ``She had no interest in Arthur Dwyer. Her only interest was in destroying the city of Chesapeake because her husband was fired from it.''
The tape recordings, which have been played for Mayor Ward as well as the FBI, include long, rambling, largely uninterrupted conversations from Feb. 15 and March 1, as well as a series of messages left by Dwyer on Lewis' answering service, asking for her to call him.
In those conversations, the vice mayor spoke frequently to Lewis about the inner workings of the City Council. He made disparaging remarks about his colleagues and bragged about his influence on the nine-member board.
He boasted of convincing his colleagues to reinstate Lewis' insurance by twisting arms and calling in favors.
``I feel really bad that you had to use your favors with people you don't like to kiss up to,'' Lewis said in the Feb. 15 taped conversation.
``I'm not going to worry about that,'' Dwyer responded. ``But I'll tell you what: If you will make sure you come over here, then it won't bother me.''
``OK,'' Lewis said. ``Well, all right.''
``You won't have to worry about it any more,'' Dywer said.
At one point in the conversation, Dwyer remarked that the current council was more unified than at any time in the past. In another section of the tape, he referred to individual colleagues by name and described them as ``redneck,'' ``dumbass,'' ``blockhead'' and ``womanhound.''
In contrast, Dwyer painted himself as a powerful politician who loved to frequent black-tie events and enjoyed being cajoled by developers who sought out his counsel.
He spoke often of an ongoing friendship with a prominent developer's agent. Dwyer boasted that his friend, also a pilot, had extended an open invitation to fly him wherever he wanted to go.
Dwyer also said on the tape that the same agent flew Dwyer's estranged wife, Sara, from her home in the Outer Banks to Chesapeake to attend formal parties. The Dwyers haven't lived together for about a year.
``Does he give her more than one ride? I mean has he taken her out on the plane more than once?'' Lewis asked on the tape.
``Oh yeah,'' Dwyer responded.
``She's lucky,'' Lewis said.
When asked about the statements, Dwyer said they were examples of how he had bragged to Lewis to impress her. He denied ever using the friend's plane to bring his wife to Chesapeake, though he acknowledged the engineer had flown her twice last summer and fall.
Sara Pena-Dwyer, a chef at the Blue Point Bar & Grill in Duck, N.C, also said she had only flown twice with the friend. Once was to a wedding in Maryland, the other was a culinary function in Norfolk. She said she reimbursed the friend for both trips.
In another section of the tape, Dwyer referred to the City Council's yearlong debate over an application to rezone 25 acres of land in the Camelot section of Deep Creek.
The council, which postponed voting on the issue four times, approved the project in December.
In that time, the predominantly-black Camelot Civic League fought with the city, and then internally, over the lack of neighborhood recreation. While some accused the developer and past councils of racism, others sought to negotiate for the 4.6-acre park, which the developer, W.W. Reasor, eventually offered.
Dwyer was instrumental in keeping the application alive when a majority of council members was prepared to deny the request.
``The bottom line is we were going to save a bunch of money if we got this rezoning through, but the black people didn't want it,'' Dwyer told Lewis in one recording. ``Well, the Democrats on council didn't want to go against the black people. . . . Blacks go to the polls and vote Democrats. . . . No matter who it is . . . you cannot get them to vote for anybody other than a Democrat.''
Council members learned of the tape recordings during an executive session at the close of the March 28 council meeting, when Ward advised them of the conversations and the FBI inquiry.
In an interview Saturday, Ward said he went to the FBI after Lewis played part of the tape to him in February.
``Based on the information she shared with me,'' Ward said, ``I felt that I had probable cause to ask for an investigation.''
Ward did not go to the state police or the commonwealth's attorney's office for his inquiry.
``I felt strongly that the confidentiality and objectivity of the case would best be preserved by the agency that I went to,'' he said.
During the closed-door meeting, Dwyer apologized for the exaggerations and derogatory comments he said were meant to impress Lewis. He told his colleagues he was a victim of a dangerous and manipulative woman.
Council members John E. Allen and W. Joe Newman would not comment on the March 28 executive session or statements Dwyer made during the recorded phone calls.
``It sounds to me like Mr. Dwyer and Sandra Lewis might have a legal problem going on,'' Allen said. ``I don't know if that's going on, but it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of council.''
Council members Nance, Duda and John W. Butt could not be reached for comment.
De Triquet said that even one individual could damage citizens' faith in their council's ability to make public decisions fairly.
``When you are in a position of public confidence and trust, you must continuously and meticulously avoid any risk that your decision-making will be colored by personal advantage.'' MEMO: Staff writer Toni Whitt contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Sandra R. Lewis
Photo
Arthur L. Dwyer
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL by CNB