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February 3, 2015

How Investigations Get Started

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: — Bill @ 8:29 am

Bribery-BCA-2011Occasionally a television news story provides the station’s watchers, listeners, and online readers with a concise but fairly complete picture of how a city councilman’s official actions can prompt a federal criminal investigation.  That was the case when Hampton Roads, Virginia, television station WVEC ran its February 2, 2015, news story entitled FBI investigating Beach councilman’s vote on Cavalier project.

Not counting the attachment to the federal grand jury subpoena detailing the records which the city of Virginia Beach, Virgina, Custodian of Records is required to bring before the grand jury, the news story is only about 575 words.

WVEC’s news story suggests someone credibly alleged that Virginia Beach Councilman John Uhrin may have accepted a bribe or gratuity in return for his favorable vote on a project providing a developer millions of dollars in taxpayer incentives to renovate a hotel and allow a permit for a luxury housing community.  It appears that the bribe or gratuity alleged took the form of Uhrin’s wife being hired to market the homes in the project in return for Councilman Uhrin’s favorable vote.  (Generally, a bribe is a payoff for future official action, whereas a gratuity is a payoff for a prior official action.)

Note that at this point, the FBI is only conducting an investigation.  The function of the investigation is to gather verifiable, relevant facts which would allow the federal grand jury to decide if there is sufficient admissible evidence to warrant indicting anyone with a crime.

2 Comments

  1. An elected official profiting from their dealings on Council? Sounds like a real Inside Connection.

    Comment by Dan Gookin — February 3, 2015 @ 8:46 am

  2. Dan,

    Of course, that wouldn’t be limited to elected officials. A municipality’s committees and commissions (e.g., planning & zoning, parking, urban renewal agency, etc.) could hypothetically be packed with self-serving members and commissioners who make official recommendations that “steer” the municipality’s lucrative projects and contracts to benefit themselves, family members, or cronies. For that matter, trustees of school districts and community college districts could engage in the same “steering” conduct, couldn’t they?

    Comment by Bill — February 3, 2015 @ 9:07 am

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