THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512030089
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
A scam artist who authorities say carried on his activities behind bars was released on mandatory parole after the parole board chairman resigned.
Braxton Lee Bumpers was paroled on Friday, said Bill Cimino, a spokesman for Secretary of Public Safety Jerry W. Kilgore.
It was unclear whether Bumpers would be prosecuted. Bumpers allegedly used current and former Southampton Correctional Center employees to buy a car, open bank accounts and acquire cellular phones in August 1994 in an apparent check-kiting scheme.
Law enforcement authorities have said that after they learned of Bumpers' alleged activities, he was used as an informer in a sting operation to identify his accomplices.
Bumpers, imprisoned for more than eight years for larceny and fraud, has denied he was ever an informer or involved in a sting.
Bumpers was to have been released on mandatory parole Oct. 23, but then-Parole Board Chairman John B. Metzger III stepped in shortly before then and stopped it for as long as six months.
Metzger said he stopped the release on the ground that Bumpers might be prosecuted for activities while an inmate at Southampton.
Metzger stepped down last month after an investigation into charges he backdated warrants and improperly acted alone on some cases.
Kilgore said a state auditor's report found no criminal wrongdoing by Metzger, but the state police are investigating Metzger's actions as board chairman. by CNB