Questions remain in McCarthy case as community reacts
‘If there is any single person who gets credit for having what we have in Rappahannock County — the lack of development and open spaces — it’s him’
Questions still remain about a Virginia State Police investigation that resulted in Class 1 misdemeanor embezzlement charges being filed against former Rappahannock County Administrator John McCarthy.
As reported online last week by this newspaper, on Jan. 2, VSP Special Agent W.W. Talbert filed a criminal complaint in Rappahannock County General District Court charging McCarthy with three counts of misdemeanor embezzlement for $202.90 worth of purchases of books and magazines charged to his county-issued government credit card in 2014 and 2015.
The criminal complaint included a listing of expenses charged on
the county card between Dec. 2014 and May 2015. With one exception, the books and magazines purchased do not appear to be job-related.
Of three additional expenses, all in the $450 to $500 range, only one indicates that it was reimbursed to the county.
In response to a phone message left for McCarthy this week, he emailed: “I have no comment at this time.”
In addition, a message left Tuesday for Special Prosecutor Paul Walther to inquire about the additional expenses went unreturned.
Walther, the Culpeper County Commonwealth’s Attorney, was appointed special prosecutor in the Rappahannock County investigation after this county’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Art Goff recused himself.
Community reaction to the charges against McCarthy has been mixed. Some wonder why all the fuss — and a threeyear investigation — amounting to just over $200. Among them Rappahannock County Supervisor Chris Parrish.
Parrish pointed out that McCarthy, who he has known and worked alongside for many years, personally sacrificed for the county beyond his everyday duties as its administrator.
“John turned down automatic pay raises to help balance the county budget,” Parrish revealed. “We [the county’s coffers] were in a crunch back then and he voluntarily gave up his last two years of pay raises. He saved the county a lot of money there.
“We all know what he's done for the county," Parrish concluded. "And if there is any single person who gets credit for having what we have in Rappahannock County — the lack of development and open spaces — it's him.”
The entire investigation was touched off by a letter from Rappahannock County Treasurer Debbie Knick to the county’s Board of Supervisors in February
2017. In the missive, she accused her own county government of mismanagement, including failure to follow proper expense and payroll procedures, and lack of oversight of budgeting and spending.
In particular, Knick flagged then-Rappahannock County Administrator Debbie Keyser, who had been in her post almost eight months, for the “amount of mistakes and the apparent lack of oversight and miscommunication” when conducting official business.
She also cited cases of “overpayment” of county funds and called out what might best be described as sloppy oversight by the administrator’s office of county credit card purchases by employees.
Walther explained in an interview in his Culpeper office last Friday why the investigation had taken almost three years to complete: “This was an extremely thorough investigation because of the fact it was over a series of years. That’s why it took so long. And then with the additional information that came forward, the investigation not only covered a number of years but different avenues.”
He also said that the final charges “reflected my analysis of what was done. I will tell you there could have been multiple felonies, but I chose to exercise discretion to charge the three misdemeanors, three embezzlements that are on the record.”
Walther further explained, “In the legal world there is malfeasance and misfeasance. Malfeasance is something with the definition of criminal intent — [the] crimes are all intentional but [there’s] not a scheme or a pattern of practice. [In this case] there’s no indication that the defendant did this to make money.
“It’s more than an oversight, more than just a mistake, but normally in embezzlement you see a pattern of practice — that ‘I am doing this to support a drug habit, to pay off bills,’ and that was not the case here.”
The criminal complaint outlines three expenses: one made to Barnes & Noble in Richmond for $72.87 for “The Book of Strange New Things,” “The Baffler — The Journal That Blunts the Cutting Edge,” and “The Brotherhood of Book Hunters.”
A Jan. 25, 2015, statement shows McCarthy paid $68.66 to Amazon for books and subscriptions, including “Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City.”
And a March 17, 2015, expense for $61.37 that included the book “Serpents in the Cold (The Boston Saga 1)” appears to have been charged to the county Planning Commission.
After serving for three decades as Rappahannock’s administrator, McCarthy joined the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) as Senior Advisor & Director of Strategic Partnerships. He is also on the board of the PATH Foundation. Both organizations are based in Warrenton.
While PEC did not return a phone message asking for comment on the charges, the PATH Foundation’s Director of Communications Amy Petty gave this statement to the Rappahannock News on Wednesday:
“John is an active member of the PATH Foundation board. He informed leadership about these charges prior to them being publicly announced. John has given countless hours on a volunteer basis to the PATH Foundation since its inception, and we appreciate his leadership and guidance. We are hopeful for a resolution to this matter in the near future.”
McCarthy will be arraigned in Rappahannock County District Court on Jan. 21 at 9 a.m. According to Virginia’s legal code, the authorized punishment for conviction of a Class 1 misdemeanor is confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.
Walther said that he hopes the case will be wrapped up after the Jan. 21 court date. If he has his way, he said, “[The case] is going to end that date with an agreement. But that has to be accepted by [the judge].”
Meanwhile, we are told that a controversial June 8, 2016, county purchase of a $5,300 U.S. Army surplus cargo truck, and subsequent $2,000 purchase of a second truck on Sept. 1, 2016, both paid for by county credit card (a private citizen reportedly donated the money for the second purchase on behalf of the Sperryville Fire Department), were looked into and cleared by the State Police investigation and Walther’s office.
The Board of Supervisors had been caught off guard by the county’s emergency management purchases, which included an additional $250 for a snow plow blade, and ended up paying the bill with money earmarked for office space rental. It was envisioned that the trucks, purchased from the state of Virginia, could be used for snow removal on secondary roads during medical emergencies.