BRISTOL, Va. – The Virginia State Police confirmed Tuesday it is investigating accusations that the Abingdon-based magistrate’s office falsified documents to steer bail bonds to a relative.
Following a Sunday front-page article in the Bristol Herald Courier – the result of the newspaper’s two-month investigation – a State Police spokesman asked the newspaper Tuesday for its evidence collected while researching the story.
State Police investigators fear official records both in the magistrate’s office and with former magistrates might be illegally destroyed once a subpoena is issued, Sgt. Michael Conroy said.
“As [the Herald Courier] stated in the article, some documents have already been destroyed,” he added.
The Herald Courier declined to turn over any of its records.
“Journalists cannot be used as arms of law enforcement or anyone else,” said J. Todd Foster, the Herald Courier’s managing editor. “While we appreciate the State Police being bold enough to ask, and for trying to expedite its investigation, we will resist on ethics grounds any attempts to gain our records. If subpoenaed, we will move to have it quashed.”
When told that Tuesday, Conroy said, “I thought you’d say that. ... At least we tried.”
Sunday’s article detailed how John C. “Tiny” Mullins III falsified court records the evening of April 18, 2008, and early the next day to hide questionable dealings with his father, a local bail bondsman. 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 a court hearing. Each time, the freed defendant had hired Tiny Mullins’ father, J.C. Mullins Jr., of Abingdon Bail Bonds.
Harris admits giving Tiny Mullins the computer pass code to the electronic signature.
The Virginia Supreme Court, which oversees the state magistrate system, fired Tiny Mullins and forced Harris to retire in May, three weeks after the newspaper first sought public documents relating to the scheme.
Sgt. Conroy also confirmed that the newspaper’s initial inquiries into the magistrate’s office two months ago sparked the State Police probe.
The “story called to light the investigation,” Conroy said.
The newspaper began its investigation with a public records request to the Virginia Supreme Court for the bondsman’s 2008 client list. Also sought were the employee time sheets of Tiny Mullins and Harris to show who worked when Harris’ electronic signature was used.
The time sheets for Tiny Mullins – both his personal records and copies filed in the Abingdon magistrate’s office – had been destroyed, despite state law requiring the documents be saved for three years.
Only Harris’ time sheets remain.
mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549
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