Owners cleared in Sunny Daze

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Two years and thousands of dollars later, Sunny Daze owners Michael and Linda Dix finally heard the words Wednesday that they’ve unwaveringly argued they deserved to hear all along.
Charges dismissed.
“It is a wonderful feeling to have it not hanging over your head any more,” Linda Dix said.
Wednesday’s dismissal order signed by Judge Josiah T. Showalter Jr. in Wythe County Circuit Court represents the end of a lengthy legal battle the couple have been fighting since their arrest in May 2006 on charges of selling drug paraphernalia at their convenience store on U.S. 11 in Wytheville – where they sold a variety of smoking devices and legal herbs.
The motion for the dismissal was a joint action between the commonwealth and the Dixes’ attorney, David Saliba.
Thursday brought more good news for the couple as a hearing officer for the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control also dismissed a drug paraphernalia charge at an ABC hearing in Roanoke.
During their long legal journey, the Dixes’ were convicted and sentenced to jail time in Wythe County General District Court and sued for defamation of character by the deputy commonwealth’s attorney who prosecuted them after they claimed in a Web site posting that he lied in court.
A perjury charge on Linda Dix also was brought to a Wythe County grand jury in January 2007, but the group declined to send the matter on to Circuit Court.
The couple’s drug paraphernalia case had been stewing in Circuit Court since October 2006 when they appealed the General District Court ruling that called for them to each be fined $500 and spend two days in jail for the class 1 misdemeanor offense.
Despite her relief in seeing the case end, Linda Dix said damage from the drawn out process lingers.
“We feel like it took two years to find out that we weren’t guilty when we knew that when we started,” she said. “We didn’t have anything illegal in our store. We didn’t sell anything illegal.”
The store owner decried the investigation on her store as “selective enforcement,” saying that numerous other stores in the area sold the same kinds of pipes and smoking devices without running into any legal trouble.
Linda Dix said that she and her husband spent around $16,000 in attorney fees fighting the criminal and civil charges and added that lost business at her store due to negative publicity surrounding the cases resulted in incalculable other financial losses.
The couple’s civil matter with Lee Harrell, Wythe County’s deputy commonwealth’s attorney, ended in May when Harrell decided to drop his request for $600,000 in damages for alleged harm to his professional reputation from the Dixes’ online accusations.
Upon his review of the evidence in the criminal case and the Dixes’ prior criminal history, jail time for the couple wasn’t warranted, said Michael Jones, a Smyth County assistant commonwealth’s attorney who was brought in as a special prosecutor for the criminal appeal after Harrell’s suit created a conflict of interest in the Wythe County office.
“We looked at the case as objectively as possible,” Jones said. “This I believe is a fair and just result for both sides.”
Saliba also expressed his satisfaction with the dismissal.
“I think we accomplished what we were looking for, which was to demonstrate their innocence,” the Dixes’ attorney said.
With the case having lingered for so long, Jones said the Dixes had in essence been on informal probation for the past two years and proved to be model citizens to the best of anyone’s knowledge.
“This type of sentence, if you will, would have been reasonable in these circumstances,” Jones said about the de facto probation.
In addition, under the dismissal agreement, all of the pipes and other items seized by the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office in the initial investigation on the Dixes back in 2006 will be destroyed within 21 days. Jones estimated the value of the items at $1,000.
Saliba said the Dixes were eager to see the charges dismissed and didn’t want to cause additional trouble by demanding the items be returned.
“We just didn’t want to have any more difficulties at all – period,” he said.
Jones was appointed to the case in October 2007. He said he would have liked to have seen the matter resolved much sooner, but he added that working with various different legal representatives for the Dixes prior to Saliba hampered progress.
Saliba began representing the Dixes in February.
“We started from square one with Mr. Saliba,” Jones said.
As a Wytheville resident himself, Jones said he wishes the Dixes the best of luck with their business.
“Just hopefully everyone can move forward from this matter,” he said.
Throughout the long legal ordeal, Linda Dix said she was proud that she and her husband were able to keep their business afloat.
“It’s been a fight for us,” she said.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .