Former bank employees enter pleas

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

One by one, with soft, but steady voices, five former employees of the Wytheville branch of Carter Bank and Trust appeared Wednesday in Wythe County Circuit Court and admitted to stealing more than $57,000 from their employer.
Each of the five women – April M. Aker, 39, of Wytheville; Jennifer M. Blanchett, 27, of Rural Retreat; Cindy P. Booher, 39, of Max Meadows; Stacy N. Buchanan, 25, of Max Meadows; and Valerie L. Jones, 56, of Wytheville – pleaded guilty to a felony charge of embezzlement.
In summarizing the prosecution’s evidence in the case, Commonwealth’s Attorney Gerald Mabe recounted the myriad reasons for taking the money that the workers gave bank leaders when they were confronted about the crime earlier this year.
Blanchett and Buchanan used their portion of the pilfered funds to make car payments, while Aker bought “just stuff that she needed,” Mabe said.
Mabe added that Booher had some stolen $100 bills in her purse that she turned over when bank leaders told her they had discovered the crime. Jones’ reaction when confronted about the crime, Mabe said, was to express that “she did not realize the implications of what she had done.”
The commonwealth’s attorney said the money was embezzled through the use of “inter-teller tickets.”
In an interview after the hearing, Mabe explained that Aker, the vault teller, would take money requests from the other workers. While the ticket Aker wrote to release the money would match up with the amount requested by the lobby tellers – thus making the books appear accurate for auditing purposes – some of the money was instead taken by the women for their own personal use.
“They were using the vault as a piggy bank, essentially is what it was,” Mabe said.
He said the women kept detailed records of the amounts they took and regularly paid back money even before their actions were detected.
“Money came and went,” Mabe said, adding that the women treated the funds like “an interest-free loan from the bank.”
Mabe said the women did not consider their actions to be illegal because the money, in their minds, was merely being borrowed instead of stolen.
While it was difficult to determine precisely when the scheme began, Mabe said it appeared to have been ongoing for most of the year before the women were confronted by bank management and fired in August. They were arrested in October after being indicted by a Wythe County grand jury.
How the women developed their plan to take the money and how they each got involved remains unclear.
“That has been the source of mystery,” Mabe said.
Mabe said the amount the bank employees stole peaked at $57,240 earlier this year. When the women’s scheme came to an end, the commonwealth’s attorney said the missing amount stood at around $37,000.
The balance of the stolen funds has since been repaid, Mabe added.
Although the money was recovered, the commonwealth’s attorney said he is working with bank leaders to quantify the expense incurred by the bank to uncover the crime, in order to show that the women’s actions weren’t entirely offset simply by paying back the embezzled funds.
Evidence in the case was provided by an investigation led by Special Agent T.S. Svard of the Virginia State Police and Sandra Clontz, a Carter Bank and Trust vice president.
Clontz attended Wednesday’s hearing, but declined comment as she left the courthouse after the proceedings.
The attorney for all five defendants, Tom Jackson, also declined to make a statement after court Wednesday.
The ex-bank employees were accompanied to court by family members, including Fort Chiswell High School Principal Brett Booher, who sat beside his wife in the front row of the courtroom gallery before and after she made her plea.
Although the women all pleaded guilty, none of them have a plea agreement with the prosecution.
Formal findings of guilt and subsequent sentencing on the charges were delayed until March 3 in order to allow time for the development of a pre-sentence report.
Judge Josiah Showalter Jr. could still reduce the defendants’ felony charges to misdemeanors after reading the reports, but Mabe said any reduction would come without the consent of his office.
Each woman faces a maximum of 20 years in prison; however, even if they are convicted of felonies, their sentences are not likely to be anywhere near that severe.
In a similar case, an employee who embezzled $91,000 from Wythe County’s Water and Wastewater Department during a nearly three-year period avoided jail time in 2007 after she paid the county back in full prior to pleading guilty to the same felony charge the ex-Carter Bank and Trust employees are facing.
Motions Heard Prior to Conrad Murder Trial
Murder suspect Samuel Robert Conrad III, 47, of Max Meadows also appeared Wednesday in Circuit Court as his attorney, Dawn Cox, presented a number of motions in advance of a jury trial scheduled to begin in less than three weeks.
The defense’s request that drew the most debate – and a number of comments from Judge Josiah Showalter Jr. – was for the jury to be taken during the trial to the mobile home located in a field off Payne Town Road where a cousin found the decaying body of Iris Spencer Gregory – Conrad’s alleged victim.
Police say Gregory showed signs of blunt force trauma to her head and they charged Conrad, along with his co-defendant Linwood Lester Webster, with murder in September 2008. Gregory was found on Sept. 7, 2008, and prosecutors said Wednesday that she could have died as early as two and a half weeks prior to the discovery of her body.
Cox argued that the jury members could most fairly consider the case if they were able to see Gregory’s isolated residence with their own eyes.
“I think it’s important for them to see the murder scene,” she said.
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Lee Harrell told the judge that he and Cox had to don hazard suits when they previously visited the site, and he protested that it would be a burdensome endeavor to set up a tour for the jury.
“It’s going to be dangerous and it’s going to be difficult,” he said.
Showalter denied Cox’s motion and instead instructed Harrell and Cox to pay another visit to the residence and make photos and video to show the jury.
“Besides, it’s going to be cold,” the judge said in rejecting the motion.
Cox protested that pictures still wouldn’t give the jury a full sense of the surroundings, but Showalter suggested that a zoom lens would give her the flexibility to depict the scene in whatever way she felt was needed.
In another motion brought by the defense Wednesday, Cox asked Showalter to allow prospective jurors to be questioned without other members of the jury pool present.
“Mr. Conrad is entitled to a fair and impartial jury,” Cox said, going on to argue that individual questioning is the only way to achieve that result due to the emotion and press coverage already surrounding the case.
Harrell, though, countered that Conrad’s case has been overshadowed in the local media by coverage of a December 2008 shooting where Douglas Albert Jaccard is accused of killing his Dyer Road neighbor.
Jaccard’s murder trial is set to begin on Feb. 1, 2010.
“Most people I talk to don’t remember it,” Harrell said about the accusations against Conrad.
Showalter declined to grant the defense’s motion for individual juror questioning, but said he would reconsider it if he deems it necessary when jury selection begins on Jan. 4, 2010.
While the judge refused to grant a number of Cox’s motions Wednesday, he did allocate up to $1,500 of state funds for the defense to pay for an expert medical witness to testify about an injury Conrad suffered prior to Gregory’s death.
Conrad’s co-defendant, Webster, is also scheduled to be in court on the first day of Conrad’s trial for a motion regarding his case. Webster testified against Conrad during a preliminary hearing in March.
At this point, Webster also still faces a first-degree murder charge, but no trial date has been set for his case.
At the March hearing, Webster said Conrad used a fruit bowl to strike Gregory. He also said Conrad threw a candle “like a baseball,” which hit Gregory in the head while she was lying on the floor.
Police also took out a search warrant to look for evidence at Conrad’s 2361 Castleton Road residence. But by an order from the judge, the results of the search have been sealed.
Wright Sentenced for Meth Lab
In another case heard Wednesday in Circuit Court, 35-year-old Brandon Blair Wright of Ivanhoe pleaded guilty to four drug-related charges.
The Wythe County Sheriff’s Office discovered a meth lab at Wright’s Delby Terrace residence in April. According to investigators, the lab was located inside a garage at his residence, but the drug had also been made in the home Wright shared with his incapacitated, elderly grandfather.
After pleading guilty to four felonies, Wright requested that his attorney, Keith Blankenship, make a statement to the judge on his behalf.
“Mr. Wright also wishes to express that he’s very much ashamed of what he’s done. … He deeply apologizes for it,” Blankenship said.
Wright admitted to possession with the intent to manufacture meth, conspiracy to manufacture meth, possession of meth precursors and possession of a firearm while also possessing a controlled substance.
He received a combined 10-year prison sentence, but the judge suspended all but one year.
Upon his release, Wright will be on active, supervised probation for five years and must pay nearly $3,500 in restitution.
Two other Ivanhoe residents, Michael Elwood Groseclose and Amy Louise Dilley, were also arrested on the same day as Wright for making meth in a Sipe Lane singlewide trailer.
When they made the arrests on April 1, police said they suspected the two operations were connected.
According to online court records, Groseclose received two years and nine months of active prison time to serve after pleading guilty to felonies in September. Dilley also pleaded guilty to felonies in September and got an active sentence of two years and six months.
Groseclose and Dilley’s meth lab was in the kitchen of a residence they shared with Dilley’s 14-month-old child.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).