THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020419
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
THE DEFENDANT: Allen Keith Butt is the son of Chesapeake City Councilman John W. Butt.
THE CASE: Keith Butt was charged with buying a stolen all-terrain vehicle.
WHO PRESIDED: A judge from Newport News heard the case after local judges removed themselves to avoid the appearance of conflict.
Allen Keith Butt, the son of a veteran Chesapeake councilman, was acquitted Wednesday of receiving stolen goods in a case that involved an all-terrain vehicle.
After a 5 1/2-hour, nonjury trial, Circuit Court Judge J. Warren Stephens of Newport News ruled that Butt, the 27-year-old son of Councilman John W. Butt, did not know that the all-terrain vehicle he bought out of the back of a van for about half its actual value had been stolen.
Stephens handled the case after all local judges removed themselves to avoid an appearance of conflict.
Keith Butt declined to comment after the trial.
``He's been through the wringer,'' John Butt said, ``and now it's over.''
Keith Butt was charged last October with buying an all-terrain vehicle that had been stolen from the Givens Corp. in Chesapeake.
The vehicle was taken in a burglary of ATVs, motorcycles, generators and outboard motors from the company.
Keith Butt told investigators that he bought the ATV for $2,500 cash from a friend shortly after the burglary.
Keith Butt testified that the friend had told him that the vehicle was a ``demo'' model with less than 100 hours on it.
The fact that the serial numbers on the frame and engine had been rubbed off did not cause him to suspect it was a stolen bike, Butt testified.
He also was not suspicious when one of the men who sold him the vehicle told him ``not to ride it around a lot,'' Butt testified.
``I assumed he didn't want me to kill myself,'' said Butt, who testified that he had never ridden an ATV before.
His suspicions only arose, Butt testified, after a friend bought a new ATV in March 1995 for about $6,000 - more than double what Butt had paid for his.
Special Prosecutor Kenneth A. Phillips argued that ``there was no question the defendant knew'' the ATV was stolen.
When first interviewed by investigators, Phillips said, Keith Butt told them that the ATV was ``probably not legit.''
John W. Brown, Butt's attorney, argued in his closing statements that Keith Butt did not act as if he knew he had a stolen ATV.
Several people testified that Keith Butt would frequently drive around Chesapeake in a van that advertised his heating and air-conditioning company, pulling the ATV in a trailer behind him.
Had Butt known it was stolen, Brown argued, he would have hidden it, not dragged it around town.
Brown also questioned the reliability of the prosecution's lead witness, Brian Schloff, who has been found guilty of grand larceny in the Givens burglary.
Schloff was one of two men who sold the ATV to Butt, and he testified that when he unloaded the vehicle at Butt's home, he told Butt that ``if he got caught with the four wheeler, it didn't come from me.''
The Chesapeake Police Department came under fire in March over its handling of cases involving the sons of city officials.
The concerns focused principally on a pair of cases involving the sons of a police captain and a Sheriff's Department captain.
Jeremy Brickhouse, 20, son of sheriff's Capt. William Brickhouse, is also charged with receiving stolen property allegedly taken from Givens. Brickhouse is scheduled to go to trial May 31.
In a separate case, William Lawrence Spruill Jr., the 23-year-old son of police Capt. William L. Spruill, was charged with grand larceny and breaking and entering in the theft of an ATV from the home of Chesapeake Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr.
That vehicle was returned to Nance, stolen again, and remains missing.
Spruill Jr. is scheduled to go to trial June 12.
An internal investigation into the handling of the cases led to the reprimand of five Chesapeake police officers, including Capt. Spruill.
Council members dropped their focus on the Police Department's actions after the state police and the chief judge of the Circuit Court said that there was insufficient evidence to investigate. by CNB