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Letter
from the Ad Hoc Committee
to
Prevent Corruption in Fairfax County
10/21/2003
Dear
Attorney General Kilgore,
We would like to follow up on the earlier
opinion issued by your office on
October 2, 2003
, in response to Del. David Albo’s inquiry on
whether the alleged conduct by Fairfax County
Supervisor Gerry Connolly violates the State and
Local Government Conflict of Interests Act.
Although you concluded that a there is a
possibility that a violation of this act may have
occurred, you also concluded that your office has
no authority and referred the matter to the
Commonwealth’s Attorney for
Fairfax
County
.
Nonetheless, we believe that there is
probable cause to suspect that more serious
offenses are involved, namely, bribery and
criminal conspiracy. As such, we ask your office
to review the allegations summarized below with a
view of undertaking an investigation into this
matter. Our concern stems from the fact that the
Commonwealth’s Attorney for
Fairfax
County
is extremely busy prosecuting the “sniper”
cases and should welcome any assistance that may
be rendered by your office.
A summary of our analysis follows.
As you know, the Washington Post’s Lisa
Rein reported that Providence District Supervisor
Gerry Connolly, who is running for Chairman of the
Fairfax Board of Supervisors, had improperly
lobbied the Board for approval of housing
development projects proposed by the West
Group--which is closely tied to his main source of
recent income, World Resources.
Gerald Halpin, the Chief Executive of West
Group, is also the founder and part owner of World
Resources. Gerald Halpin is the father of World
Resources President Peter Halpin. Both companies
have overlapping partners, investors, and owners.
Connolly obtained his consulting work with
World Resources by repeatedly lobbying West Group
Sr. V.P. Tom Fleury for extra income beyond his
supervisor salary. Connolly
even lobbied Fleury, who is West’s County zoning
point person, for extra business at a Connolly
fundraiser.
Subsequently, Connolly lobbied the
County
Board
to approve West Group’s recent proposal to build
four luxury condo high rises in Tyson’s Corner
in his
Providence
district. Connolly
pushed the necessary zoning variances for these
towers through the Board, but never revealed he
had received consulting fees from World Resources,
which has overlapping directorates with West
Group.
Then,
Connolly unabashedly used the Commonwealth’s law
requiring County officials voting on zoning
variances to disclose “any business or financial
relationship” with the applicant to disqualify
Dranesville Supervisor Stuart Mendelson from
voting on West Group’s luxury tower application.
Because Mendelson’s law partner was
representing Gerald Halpin on an unrelated matter,
Mendelson had to disqualify himself from voting on
an issue of immense importance to Dranesville
voters, who live in areas adjacent to West
Group’s luxury towers building site.
Connolly
claims he didn’t have to disclose his receipt of
hefty fees from World Resource, because County
Attorney David Bobzien told Connolly he was only a
“consultant” for World Resources, not an
“employee”. Bobzien’s
opinion is, at the very least questionable and in
all likelihood legally erroneous. Furthermore, §2.2-3121B
of the Code of Virginia requires local employees
to seek written opinions from the Commonwealth’s
Attorney—not a verbal response from the
County
Attorney
(reportedly, Bobzien’s response was not reduced
in writing until two years after it was originally
rendered).
Virginia
’s bribery statute (§18.2-447) applies to
“any benefit” provided as “consideration for
or to obtain or influence ... the recipient’s
... vote”. World
Resource provided Connolly with significant
financial benefits, which served as consideration
not only for Connolly’s vote on the West Group
Tyson’s luxury tower proposal, but also to
obtain the votes of other supervisors whom
Connolly successfully lobbied.
§2.2-511
of the Code of Virginia specifically allows the
Attorney General to institute or conduct criminal
prosecutions in cases involving a conspiracy to
commit a felony (obviously, if Connolly violated
the State’s bribery statute, it required two or
more persons to conspire in committing this
crime). In such cases, the Attorney General need
only seek the concurrence of Robert Horan, the
Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney, before initiating a
criminal investigation before a grand jury of
Fairfax
County
citizens.
Mr.
Horan, who is spending the vast majority of his
current time prosecuting John Malvo in the sniper
cases, will probably not seek to roadblock an
investigation of Connolly’s alleged
bribe-taking. But Mr. Horan must be publicly put
on the spot; otherwise partisan politics may
influence his decision.
We,
therefore, urge you strongly to write publicly to
Robert Horan, seeking his concurrence in your
planned investigation of Providence District
Supervisor Gerry Connolly, for alleged
bribe-taking, conspiracy, and other lesser
included offenses.
We urge you to write this letter
immediately, before this man is elected to the
Chairmanship of our
County
Board
, which represents more than one million
Fairfax
citizens.
One
man with strong ties to prominent
Northern Virginia
developers should not be allowed to break the
Commonwealth’s laws with impunity.
We
look forward to your favorable consideration of
our request.
Sincerely,
LIST
OF SIGNATORIES
1.
Phillip Rodokanakis
2.
Peggy Rodokanakis
3.
Dan Gray
4.
Patrick McSweeney*
5.
Peter Ferrara
6.
Keith Born*
7.
Wanda Born*
8.
Howard R. Lind
9.
Mike Thompson, Jr.
10.
Mike Lane
*
11.
James Turbett
12.
Thomas F. Barthelemy
13.
Jeff Evans
14.
Joe Underwood
15.
Larry Krakover
16.
Mary Campbell
17.
Donald E. Scoggins
18.
Chuck McAndrew
19.
Joan Schmidt
20.
William Schmidt
21.
Sandra K. Speer
22.
James Speer
23.
James Taylor
24.
Debbie Taylor
25.
Whitmal Hill
26.
Meredith Quillen
27.
John Taylor
28.
Denise Reheuser
29.
Terrence Wear
30.
Jim Wink*
31.
John Clerici
32.
Alma Jackson
33.
Robin Angle
34.
Arthur Purves
35.
Bernie Hite
36.
Perry Young
37.
David B. Swink
38.
Kent S Webber
39.
James Rollins*
40.
John Grisby*
41.
Diane H. Sachs
42.
John Litzenberger
43.
George Croft
44.
Carter S. Thomas
45.
Matthew Forys
46.
Ronald Cloutier
47.
Christopher Gray
48.
Peter Gray
49.
Patrick Gray
50.
Michael Gray
51.
Helen Gray
52.
James Renne
53.
Thomas O’Malley
54.
Bernard Victory
*
Asterisks denote
non-Fairfax
County
residents who have a strong interest in seeing
that the laws of our Commonwealth are enforced.
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