After being charged with felony and misdemeanor crimes for alleged perjury and disclosure violations, Gary Walker, chairman of the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors, pleaded guilty this week to five counts of failing to disclose personal interests in certain property in Charlotte County.
Under an agreement reached with prosecutors, Walker entered Alford pleas of guilt to the five misdemeanor charges and received a 60-month suspended jail sentence, 12 months on each charge. With Alford pleas, defendants do not directly admit guilt for crimes but acknowledge that prosecutors have sufficient evidence to obtain convictions.
Walker further agreed to immediately tender his resignation to the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors, although he was granted a period of six months before he must step down. The sentence was handed down Monday in Charlotte County Circuit Court.
Walker is further barred from holding public office for the five-year duration of his suspended jail sentence.
Walker’s ongoing — albeit short-term — membership on the Board of Supervisors could draw objections from members of the public when the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors next meets on October 9.
The longtime Charlotte County supervisor was first indicted in January on three felony charges of perjury and two misdemeanor charges of failure to submit yearly Statement of Economic Interest (SEI) forms. In June, Walker was hit with an additional eight felony indictments for alleged perjury.
The annual SEI filings are required under the Virginia Conflicts of Interests Act (COIA), in which public officials are required to make disclosures of their personal interests. Walker failed to disclose certain income-generating property in his annual statements filed over a number of years, the court determined. The felony charges of perjury — reduced in court to misdemeanors — stemmed from Walker’s acts of willfully swearing falsely under oath about material matters related to the disclosure requirements.
According to a statement on the case issued by special prosecutor Tracy Quackenbush Martin, the Commonwealth agreed to amend three of the perjury counts to misdemeanor violations of the COIA disclosure laws in exchange for Walker stepping down from public office and refraining from taking any similar public position.
Walker
“The Commonwealth reached this agreement in close consultation with the Virginia State Police, which had invested heavily into its investigation. We acknowledged that the goal of our prosecution was to remove Walker from public office, and we were able to achieve that under the terms of our agreement,” stated Martin, who serves as Commonwealth’s Attorney for Halifax County.
Walker, 73, resides in Charlotte Courthouse and has been free on bond since the initial charges were filed.
Kay Pierantoni, who served on the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors from the Wylliesburg-Red Oak district in 2020, first accused Walker of accepting gifts for his district ahead of a vote to issue a conditional use permit to Raleigh, N.C.-based solar developer Holocene Clean Energy for the development of the 5-megawatt Red House Solar project near Phenix. Walker responded by telling Pierantoni at the time that her remarks bordered on “slander.”
Under Virginia law, members of every governing body in all counties and cities and of towns with populations greater than 3,500 must disclose their financial interests by filing a Statement of Economic Interests form on or before February 1 of the year in which they are serving in office.
Walker, under oath, reported that at various times between January 2016 until Jan. 11, 2023, he received compensation from serving as a teacher employed by the Charlotte County School Board, as well as on the board of Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation and as the owner of Cornerstone Insurance Agency.
Nowhere on the forms did Walker report income he received as a member of the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors, a position he has held since 1996.
In each year, Walker swore that neither he nor any member of his family owed more than $5,000 to any one creditor and claimed he did not owe personal debts to any bank, credit union, savings institution, finance company, credit card company, insurance company or brokerage firm.
In filings made over the course of the seven years Walker reported owning stock or partnership interests valued at between $50,001 and $250,000 in Cornerstone Insurance Agency, Roxabel, LLC. and The Bank of Charlotte County and rental properties valued at more than $5,000 each in Charlotte Courthouse at 276, 285 and 515 George Washington Highway, 201, 380, 438 and 717 LeGrande Ave., 287 Thomas Jefferson Highway, 100, 130, 213, and 2631 Woodfork Road, 4272 Feartown Road, 168 Moses Dr., 234 Roanoke Bridge Road, 167 Union Cemetery Road, 1183 Patrick Henry Road, and 148 New York Avenue, Drakes Branch. None was the subject of any government contract, Walker stated in his filings.
Walker’s SEI filings suggest that he did not own all of the properties for all seven years covered by the charges, and his interest in Roxabel, LLC did not begin until sometime in 2021, which he first reported in January 2022.
Roxabel, LLC was legally created in April 2005, according to records filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Since its inception, the official address for Roxabel, LLC is 201 LaGrande Ave., Charlotte Court House, which is the same address as Walker’s Cornerstone Insurance Agency. Additionally, Walker has served as the registered agent for Roxabel, LLC since November 2012.
Roxabel, LLC is the owner of a wedding venue known as Roxabel that is managed by Walker’s daughter, Reid.
Walker also claimed to have received no gifts or things of value from any lobbyist, lobbyist’s principal or contractors doing business with the county during the seven years of SEI filings covered by the warrants.
The conflict of interest charges pending against Walker alleged that he omitted information about properties he owns or holds an economic interest in at 398 David Bruce Avenue and at 351 Watkins Drive in Charlotte County. Both of these properties were said to have been left off his Statement of Economic Interests form filed Jan. 11, 2023.
Charlotte County tax records list Walker as the owner of several other properties also not reported on his SEI filings, including 366 Woodfork Road, 333 David Bruce Avenue, and 17 lots owned with Alexis Brown in a subdivision off Carey Drive referred to in the tax records as Pineview. The tax records also indicate Walker owns several unnumbered parcels on LeGrande Avenue.
Walker was first elected to the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors in 1996. Before that he served eight years on the Charlotte County School Board and 12 years on the Charlotte Court House Town Council. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Mid-Atlantic Broadband, the Virginia Tobacco Commission, and the Commonwealth Regional Council.
