The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

December 27, 2008

Graham conviction overturned; state case pending

No. 4 of top five stories of 2008

By Audrey Stanton

In 2004, news of a senior center director with a $450,000 salary and an elaborate studio apartment on the top floor of the Wyoming County Council on Aging raised eyebrows and questions throughout southern West Virginia.

By 2006, Bob Graham had been federally charged with 39 counts of embezzlement and fraud. His trial was the stuff of soap operas, complete with testimony from an exotic dancer and others who described Graham’s lavish lifestyle and extravagant spending habits — cars, entertainment, travel and a personal hot tub and tanning bed in his studio apartment. The trial also included testimony from elderly members of his board of directors, who admitted they simply signed what Graham asked them to sign.

Yet when it was over, a federal judge sent him to prison on a single count involving his sick leave buyout, specifically that he cashed in $31,129 in sick leave payments without getting approval for the buyout from the Wyoming Council on Aging while serving as the agency’s director. He was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison to be followed by three years’ probation.

Graham appealed. He had spent 13 months at a minimum-security facility in Morgantown when a three-judge panel declared him innocent and set him free. On March 13, 2008, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., concluded that there was insufficient evidence to conclude Graham didn’t have permission to cash in the sick leave and that he did, in fact, have permission from the board.

That wasn’t the end for Graham. Upon release, he vowed to sue the United States government for wrongful conviction and continue battling the state for what remains of his frozen IRA fund, estimated to be worth some $282,000 plus another $41,000 tied up in federal fines, penalties and fees.

Both cases remain pending in their specific courts.

“My name has been cleared as far as the federal case,” Graham said last week, adding he expected a Certificate of Innocence from U.S. District Court to be forthcoming.

The state’s case, on the other hand, was filed in 2004.

“We’re approaching five years of holding up my retirement,” Graham said, expressing displeasure that the state’s trial was postponed from its originally scheduled date of Nov. 10 because of a judge’s retirement.

“Obviously, I’m looking forward to getting rid of that,” he said.

— E-mail: bnaudrey@register-herald.com

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