Lets backup to Oct. 9th to clarify a couple of things on this story out of Bristol Virginia area... I think the story actually started in April and reads like a soap opera. If you have time, you may find it interesting...
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E-mails Reveal John C. Mullins’ Efforts To Withhold Time Sheets That Show Fraud Scheme
By Michael Owens | Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: October 9, 2009
E-mails between two state agencies reveal that former Abingdon Magistrate John C. “Tiny” Mullins III balked at the Bristol Herald Courier’s request for his 2008 time sheets, which would have proved he falsified documents to aid his father’s bail bonding business.
The Herald Courier asked for the time sheets in early May. Nearly two months later, on June 28, the newspaper detailed how Tiny Mullins used another magistrate’s electronic computer signature to release from jail three defendants bonded out by his father, J.C. Mullins Jr., of Abingdon Bail Bonds. Evidence of the scheme had to be found without the aid of those time sheets, however.
E-mails since obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Virginia Supreme Court, which oversees the state’s magistrate offices, show that Tiny Mullins’ boss faced difficulty getting a straight answer about the records when he tried to respond to the newspaper’s request for information.
At one point, the boss asked Tiny Mullins if he was “willing” to turn over the time sheets. Nearly a week later, Tiny Mullins told superiors that his time sheets might have been destroyed, despite regulations requiring that they be kept for three years.
DelayThe first e-mail mention of the time sheets came on May 8 at 1:13 a.m., as Tiny Mullins relayed to regional Magistrate Supervisor Bill Walman his reservations about handing over anything that included personal information.
Tiny Mullins included in his e-mail a March 2009 opinion by the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council stating that documents in a magistrate’s office are public information. The opinion was issued in reference to a Virginia magistrate who was seeking the salaries of his co-workers and superiors.
In his e-mail to Walman, Tiny Mullins pointed to a section of the advisory opinion noting that some personnel information is not open to the public. He appears to have argued that the personal information included on the time sheets should make the entire document exempt from public disclosure.
In fact, the Herald Courier relied on this opinion to obtain from the Virginia Supreme Court and the Abingdon magistrate’s office the documents needed to investigate Tiny Mullins. The father-and-son scheme was eventually pieced together through interviews, by reviewing 140 court case files, and by creating a timeline based on another magistrate’s time sheets.
Tiny Mullins falsified bail bond release records on the evening of April 18, 2008, and early the next morning. The son used fellow Magistrate Norman Dayton Harris’ electronic computer signature to sign three separate bail bond forms to release from jail three defendants awaiting court hearings.
Harris admitted to the newspaper to giving Tiny Mullins the computer pass code to the electronic signature. Harris’ time sheets also were used to show that he was not working the night his electronic signature was printed on bond and jail release documents.
Tiny Mullins was fired and Harris was forced to resign three weeks after the Herald Courier asked for the records. Since the story ran, a special prosecutor from Roanoke has been tasked with deciding whether to charge the men with a crime.
“I’m sure you are aware that any request under the FOIA that asks for personal information that identifies a individual is exempt,” Tiny Mullins wrote his supervisor. “Our weekly and monthly reports do contain personal information including our names and social security numbers, the dates and times we work and location.”
The time sheets requested by the Herald Courier do not contain Social Security numbers, but do include the employee’s name and the dates and times worked. Also included are logs of every bail bond, jail committal and jail release the magistrate conducted while in the office.
Walman replied at 7:07 a.m. May 8, that personal information likely would be blacked out, and that he was asking for the time sheets only to follow orders from higher in the chain of command.
“Our policy is that magistrates are/were required to maintain copies of their weekly logs for a period of three years,” Walman wrote. “As your Regional Supervisor, I am requesting copies of your weekly logs. ... I need an immediate response from you. Do you have the requested reports and are you willing to give them to me?”
Nearly a week later, Walman noted in an e-mail to a Supreme Court spokeswoman that Tiny Mullins likely destroyed his time sheets.
RulesThere are supposed to be two copies of a magistrate’s time sheets. One copy is kept by the magistrate and the other is kept by the office supervisor. At the time of the Herald Courier’s information request, the Abingdon office lacked a supervisor. Walman filled in until late June, when a replacement was found.
The former Abingdon supervisor, George VanHoy, had retired in late January after running the office for 31 years. In an earlier interview, VanHoy said he destroyed the time sheets and some other documents because “everything that was left there that wasn’t important was destroyed.”
State law, as well as the magistrate’s manual, require that time sheets be kept for three years by both the magistrate and the office supervisor. Also, it is a misdemeanor if an outgoing supervisor destroys the time sheets instead of handing them over to a successor, according to state law.
On May 8, hours after requesting the time sheets from Tiny Mullins, Walman informed Supreme Court spokeswoman Kristi S. Wright, who helped handle the newspaper’s information request, that VanHoy destroyed documents before he retired.
“The former Chief in the 28th District cleaned house and destroyed all log reports,” Walman wrote. “Magistrate Mullins has not yet responded to my request for any copies he may be able to locate.”
Nearly a week later, on May 13, Walman explained in another e-mail to Wright that a statewide change in the magistrate accounting system led VanHoy to believe the time sheets were no longer necessary.
Virginia magistrates used to record their work hours, bond transactions and arrest warrants on paper. That changed Nov. 1, 2008, when they moved to a computer program called eMagistrate, which automatically logs every transaction.
A program drawback is that it can’t easily print out the individual days and hours worked by a magistrate. Instead, it provides only the total hours worked in a particular pay period, according to Virginia Supreme Court spokeswoman Katya Herndon.
They would need to hire a computer expert to pull more precise information, Herndon said.
For this reason, the newspaper requested only the handwritten time sheets from January-October 2008.
In the May 13 e-mail, Walman wrote: “Magistrate Mullins kept his copies of the weekly logs at the Abingdon Office and I am told by other magistrates he was not neat and well-organized with his reports.
“He indicates to me that they may have be [sic] disposed of when the office was last cleaned of obsolete forms, reports, etc. At this time he can not locate copies of the logs. ... “I will keep on this matter, but, at this time, I do not believe I can produce these logs.”
mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549
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and then there's this...................BHC Reporter Recognized for Investigative Story Exposing Bond Scheme
Bristol Herald Courier investigative reporter Mike Owens
By The Continuous News Desk
Published: October 13, 2009
A Bristol Herald Courier reporter has won a statewide award for revealing a scheme by a local jail magistrate to funnel bond business to his father.
Michael L. Owens, 39, an investigative reporter who focuses on police and criminal justice issues, has received the Virginia Coalition for Open Government’s Freedom of Information media award for 2009.
VCOG honors one citizen, one member of the media and a local government each year for advancing the cause of open government. The organization will present the awards Thursday at its annual conference in Staunton, Va.
Documents that Owens obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act proved that Magistrate John C. “Tiny” Mullins III in Abingdon used a fellow magistrate’s electronic computer signature to falsify records that released three defendants from jail under bonds put up by Mullins’ father, J.C. Mullins Jr.
“Owens’ investigation prompted State Police to investigate Mullins, who was also fired from his position by the Virginia Supreme Court’s Office of the Executive Secretary nearly three weeks after fielding a request for documents related to the scheme,” VCOG wrote in a news release.
The criminal investigation continues.
Owens, a Norfolk native, joined the Herald Courier in February 2008 and has 15 years of experience as a journalist. He has won nearly 50 journalism awards during his career.
His investigation, backed by another magistrate’s admission of the scheme, also showed that Tiny Mullins resisted Owens’ efforts to provide state-mandated open records and showed that some state records were destroyed in violation of Virginia law.
“Mike’s work on this story continues and has been dogged,” said J. Todd Foster, the Herald Courier’s editor. “It’s the type of watchdog journalism that is – or should be – a hallmark of our profession and showed the kind of depth that newspapers can bring to these labor-intensive projects.”
