DATE: Tuesday, July 22, 1997                TAG: 9707220077

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: HAMPTON                           LENGTH:   36 lines

JUDGE DISMISSED CASE FACING COUNCILWOMAN

A judge on Monday dismissed perjury charges against a Hampton City Council member.

Linda McNeeley had been charged with four counts of perjury relating to her alleged failure to report debts on a state form required of elected officials.

Judge Duane G. Holloway dismissed the charges after the state's first witness, City Council Clerk Diana T. Hughes, said she did not recall whether McNeeley had been formally asked to swear that her financial disclosure statements were correct.

The forms, called the Statement of Economic Interests, are required to be filed in January and apply to the previous year. Prosecutors said McNeeley knowingly failed to report personal loans of more than $10,000 from two business associates.

``There was no question I knew from the beginning I did nothing wrong,'' McNeeley said after the charges were dropped.

McNeeley said the charges were concocted by political adversaries, and that she hopes the state will re-examine its financial disclosure requirements. She declined to name specific people.

Holloway criticized Hughes.

``She has no system,'' the judge said. ``This is a serious charge. I'm not going to start reaching or guessing if the procedure is right.''

The reports in question were filed between January 1993 and January 1996.

Michael Dumont, a deputy commonwealth's attorney in Virginia Beach who was special prosecutor on the case, said he was surprised by Hughes' statement that she forgot whether she had administered the oath. She hadn't expressed any doubt over the issue during prosecutors' investigation, he said.

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