Published: May 10, 2008 10:02 pm         

Graham feels media formed a ‘lynch mob’

BECKLEY, W.Va. — Bob Graham feels a news media “lynch mob” encouraged federal prosecutors to tie a noose around his neck two years ago over his handling of the Council on Aging in Wyoming County.

That noose came unraveled when a three-judge federal panel overturned the only charge that stuck when the former director went to trial on 31 charges.

In that single count, the government alleged Graham cashed in $31,129 in sick leave payments without asking the board of directors to approve the buyout.

“There’s a certain snobbishness in the Charleston area that I think has a lot to do with what happened,” Graham told The Register-Herald editorial board in a lengthy interview.

Media powers in the capital have long resented the success of the southern coalfields and the “political realities” tied to that, Graham said.

“What it really is, is putting almost a vendetta against the southern part of the state ... (over) the political power that was wielded from the southern part of the state for years,” he said.

So, naturally, he said, the Charleston beltway reacted negatively when a successful venture as the Council on Aging came along.

In his case, Graham said, Charleston newspapers gravitated without deviance to his salary every time a story was published.

“Charleston newspapers especially ran a little lynch mob,” he said.

“I call it ‘rehash journalism.’ They kept saying the same things over and over, whether or not they were accurate.”

Graham isn’t blaming his troubles with the government on the media, but said the constant coverage created a belief among government prosecutors that “we had a bad guy here, so something bad should happen since we have a bad guy.”

“And they just kept rehashing that and rehashing that, and it created a situation where I think the state reacted,” he said.

“You can call it pandering to the news media.”

Graham served 13 months and four days and now is traveling across the state to set the record straight as he views it.

First off, his actual salary never was $470,000 as the media reported, said Graham, who was the council’s only director, a job he began 25 years ago at the modest pay of $10,000.

By contract, he said, his annual salary was $185,000, a figure that ballooned to $457,000 only after he cashed in a quarter century worth of unused sick leave, but the newspapers kept using the combined figure as his salary.

Graham faced 31 charges which he scorned as “the usual list of suspects” when federal prosecutors go after someone.

“The federal government operates on theories of crime,” he told this newspaper.

“They’ve got a repertoire of possible suspects that is pretty awesome. It’s not whether you’re innocent or guilty when the federal government goes after you. It’s almost irrelevant. It’s how much money you’ve got to fight them, if you can fight them.”

Graham says he was unfairly charged on the basis that he didn’t go before his board of directors a fourth time to seek a continuing cashing out of his sick leave.

On appeal, the panel of judges in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, saying, in its opinion, “The board repeatedly authorized Graham to buy out his accrued sick leave and did not place any restrictions on the amount of accrued sick leave he could cash out or the time of these cashouts.

“As such, the timing and amount of the accrued sick leave cashouts are clearly insufficient for purposes of establishing Graham’s intent to steal funds ...”

“In a nutshell, it was comical,” Graham said. “That was the only thing that they could come up with out of the whole deal.”

Graham views the panel’s reversal of his conviction by U.S. District Judge David Faber in a 2006 bench trial as substantial.

“During trial, you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “When you go to an appeals court, they consider the appeal in the light most favorable to the government.”

Graham said his time at the minimum-security federal prison in Morgantown wasn’t a waste.

“I was in prison with some very intelligent, smart people,” he said. “I spent 13 months learning everything I could from some of those people. I soaked up everything I could. I got 500 to 600 hours of computer training. I took everything they had (to offer).”

An ex-Marine who served as a sergeant with Charlie Company at Chu Lai, Graham said he was able to adjust to any environment.

Now that he is free, Graham is on the brink of starting up two new companies, one to be known as All Your Care, designed as in-home services, a for-profit venture, and a management firm to complement it.

As for his Individual Retirement Account, still held in limbo by the state, no new hearing has been held. In this arena, Graham says, the media again have treated unfairly, never mentioning the $250,000 account was built up since 1985. What’s more, he said, if the money is released, most will go to attorney’s fees.

“If you’re looking at retirement, that is not a lot of money,” he said. “That is my retirement, the same way that a state employee would be looking at their retirement.”

Graham pointed to judges in West Virginia who pocket 80 percent of their salary upon retirement as an example of lucrative, state-provided pensions.

His passport was rescinded last year, and Graham said this tidbit was but another excuse for the media to write another story that kept him in the headlines more than the capture of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi strongman deposed in the war on terrorism.

Graham produced the re-issued passport in the interview, then smiled, adding, “I have no intention of going anywhere.”

“I’m not bitter,” he said of his run-in with the law.

“But my wife had a much tougher time than I ever did. I understand that. I think I got a pretty good education. I learned a lot from being where I’ve been. And I will revert back to that Marine Corps business. I think that has influenced me a lot. I’ve always operated that if something happens to be bad, I’ve always looked at it as something that could happen to somebody else.”





Mannix Porterfield writes for The Register-Herald in Beckley, W.Va.