Investigation Clearly Needed

We applaud the Virginia State Police for investigating accusations that Abingdon-based magistrates falsified documents to steer bail bonds to a relative.

We also are gratified that our investigation triggered the State Police’s probe after a Sunday story recounted how Magistrate John C. “Tiny” Mullins III used a fellow magistrate’s electronic computer signature to sign forms to release three defendants from jail. Each time, the freed defendant had hired the magistrate’s father, bondsman J.C. Mullins Jr., of Abingdon Bail Bonds.

Tiny Mullins recently was fired and fellow Magistrate Norman Dayton Harris was forced to resign after the Herald Courier started making inquiries to the Virginia Supreme Court, which oversees magistrates. Mullins was terminated for violating judicial admonitions against using another magistrate’s password to direct work to his father, and Harris for agreeing to let another person log-in and pretend to be him.

We admire Harris’ admission of the scheme to Herald Courier reporter Michael L. Owens, but obviously he should have done more. While Mullins used his authority as a magistrate to drum up work for his dad, Harris did not take seriously his role in enabling it. “All I did was give him my password with the understanding that he was to use it one time,” Harris told Owens.

Their supervisor, Chief Magistrate George VanHoy, who retired in January, appears to have been totally asleep at the switch, telling the reporter nothing illegal happened although it might have been unethical.

The State Police generally does not investigate ethics violations.

Meanwhile, we know for sure that other laws were violated.

The magistrate office’s time cards are supposed to be kept for three years for annual state audits, but the 2008 records were destroyed before an investigation into Mullins’ and Harris’ behavior began. That’s a misdemeanor.

Yet the timesheets, in combination with use of the electronic passwords, are a way to double-check who worked when. The Herald Courier determined that Mullins, not Harris, was working during the period in question when Harris’ electronic signature was forged. Harris confirmed it.

VanHoy, who supervised the Abingdon headquarters and its satellite offices in Marion and Bristol for 31 years, admitted that he destroyed office copies of timesheets to clean house for his replacement.

“Everything that was left that wasn’t important was destroyed,” VanHoy told the Herald Courier, adding that his yet-to-be-hired replacement “wouldn’t have thought the timesheets were any more important than I do.”

VanHoy’s reaction is alarming. He should have taken this breach more seriously, especially since he and Mullins both were admonished by a judge to never set bonds for the father’s clients. It makes us wonder if this was the way VanHoy routinely operated for three decades.

It’s no way to run such an important local government office, and we hope the State Police can clean up the mess.

We also will be watching closely to see if quasi-judges – whose job was to determine who left jail and who didn’t – committed any crimes themselves. And whether the judicial system will treat them the same as everyone else and put them on the other side of the bars.