McDonald attorney – ‘I don’t work for the Afton Inn’

The Warren County Courthouse as seen from its new Royal Avenue main entrance side – Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

Also in the Jennifer McDonald-Tom Sayre defamation case motions hearing Wednesday, June 19, Norma Jean Shaw attorney David Downes pointed to a Wednesday morning Josh Gully news story referencing an alleged November 2018 bank wire transfer payment of $10,000 authorized by McDonald to her attorney Lee Berlik’s firm.

Sayre elicits public comment on alleged McDonald embezzlement scheme

Downes reference was made at the hearing’s outset shortly after 11:30 a.m., when Downes alerted the court that opposing “counsel may have a conflict of interest”. Downes explained by pointing to the cited reference to the Cherry Bekaert accounting fraud investigation finding of a November 11, 2018, wire transfer of $10,000 from First Bank & Trust to Berlik Law LLC; a payment authorized by McDonald as a payment to the “Afton Inn Attorney”.

Downes told the court that Berlik “can’t continue to use potentially stolen funds” to pay for his representation of McDonald” adding without suggesting Berlik had previously been aware he may have been paid with stolen funds – “He’s on notice”.

Following Wednesday’s hearing Berlik declined to address the now public Cherry Bekaert allegations against his client; however, outside the courtroom he did tell media present, “I don’t work for the Afton Inn.”

Work on the 151-year-old Afton Inn, at left next door to Town Hall, has been dormant since it was cited in late March civil litigation as a means by which false invoices were alleged to have been created to accomplish illegal wire transfers by the former EDA executive director.

As noted in our above-referenced story the question about whether McDonald might be using allegedly embezzled EDA assets to pay for her civil cases legal representation was first raised by Sands-Anderson attorney Cullen Seltzer during a May 22 EDA civil litigation hearing. That discussion over the status of a plaintiff Discovery Motion request for information on McDonald’s payment of her civil legal fees – a plaintiff motion denied at the time by Judge Clifford L. Athey – came two days before McDonald’s arrest by the Virginia State Police.

The four felony charges McDonald was arrested on – two of Fraud-Obtain Money by False Pretenses and two of Larceny-Embezzlement – related to payments made to credit card companies utilizing what Afton Inn developer 2 East Main Street LLC and Cherry Bekaert assert were fraudulent invoices McDonald created to indicate payments for Afton Inn work.

EDA Attorney accuses former executive director of forging document

After the document purported to be a closed-session resolution signed by the EDA Board of Directors authorizing a 2016, $2-million dollar transfer to its executive director to enact a land purchase was allowed to remain in evidence over the objection of EDA counsel Cullen Seltzer, McDannell was questioned about the document’s origin. After an initial hesitancy telling the judge he did not know the precise origin of the document, McDannell told the court “from my client – she gave me a pile of documents and it was in there with them.”

The following day surviving members of the EDA board whose signatures were on the questioned defense exhibit testified that while it appeared to be their signatures on the closed session authorization of the $2-million for a land transfer to be accomplished by their executive director, they had no recollection of signing such a closed session document.

Roles of McDonald, EDA Board & Goodlatte described at EDA hearing

And so the legal landscape upon which McDonald’s dueling defamation lawsuits with Tom Sayre, as well as her portion of the defense in the EDA civil litigation case seeking recovery of over $21 million in EDA assets, continues to shift seismically for her attorneys at nearly every courtroom step.

Some McDonald assets frozen, jointly-owned exempted in EDA civil case

Physical landscapes, legal landscapes – WHERE are they headed …