By Daniel Sherrier
Editor
The allegedly forged petition that was circulated last year in support of Chaney Enterprises’ application for a sand and gravel mine appears to be the result of a Milford woman’s desire to help a man gain employment, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed by Lt. Travis Nutter of the Caroline Sheriff’s Office Feb. 13.
The petition in question was submitted to the Board of Supervisors at their Nov. 13 meeting as supposed evidence of the community’s support for the Chaney application, but six people came forward at that public hearing to state that their names had been signed fraudulently. Other names on the petition were found to belong to deceased individuals. Chaney officials asserted that outside parties were responsible for the petition, not the company itself.
Madison Supervisor Wayne Acors’ name was also signed without his consent. “I want it to be publicly known, I have not signed this petition,” he said at the November meeting.
As the Sheriff’s Office proceeded with its investigation, the number of signatures determined to be fraudulent swelled to well over 100.
According to the affidavit obtained from Caroline Circuit Court, the Rev. Joseph Henderson of the Bragg Hill Family Life Center distributed the petitions to other individuals for the purpose of collecting signatures from Caroline residents in support of the Chaney mine application.
The Silver Companies, which owns the Moss Neck Manor property where the Chaney mine is intended to operate, donated over 20,000 pounds of pork to Henderson’s ministry, the affidavit asserts. Henderson and others were believed to have traveled to different locations in Caroline, primarily on the weekends, to hand out this free pork, and while doing so, they would request signatures on the petitions.
The affidavit addresses the question of whether any laws may have been broken if the citizens who actually did sign the petitions felt they were misled about what they were signing or if they believed they were required to sign in order to obtain the free food. After researching the topic and consulting with Caroline County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tony Spencer, Nutter has not been able to find where this would be a violation of state law. Ultimately, the legal responsibility for understanding what is being signed falls to the signer.
The fraudulent signatures, however, are another matter.
According to the affidavit, Henderson denied any involvement in falsifying or forging any signatures, and he said he had begun trying to determine who committed the forgeries until his legal counsel advised him to stop and allow law enforcement to investigate. Henderson supplied the names of individuals who were given petitions for the purpose of obtaining signatures.
Among those individuals was Arthur Cunningham. Nutter visited the Milford residence of Cunningham and Lueatheal Childs on Feb. 10. Childs claimed she was aware of the petitions but did not know who forged them.
According to Childs’ account to Nutter, she and Cunningham received some of the pork from Henderson’s ministry. They had eaten some and gave some of it away while attempting to gather signatures. Their efforts yielded only six or seven signatures, she said.
“Lueathel also told [Nutter] that she was helping get signatures on the petitions because she and Arthur were hoping that the Chaney Corporation would hire Arthur if the project was approved,” the affidavit states.
Nutter could not locate the signatures Childs had reported collecting, but he did spot a name belonging to the daughter of a couple Childs had mentioned. This signature was distinctive in that a cell phone number was written beside the name. The individual, when contacted by Nutter, confirmed the number and said she would never have written her phone number on a public document.
Furthermore, she indicated she did not sign any petition and had never heard of the proposed mining project. Nutter asked if she knew Childs or Cunningham, and she said she was a neighbor until recently and had been friends with Childs’ son, who would have known her cell phone number. The affidavit reports that she “did not provide any information that was accusatory towards Childs.”
Nutter then directed a confidential source of information, a person already known to Childs, to try to engage Childs in a conversation about the petitions. This individual visited Childs’ residence on Feb. 11 wearing an audio recording device.
“During this conversation, Lueathel explained how she would give people pork and get them to sign the petition, at one point, Lueathel stated ‘I signed a lot of them,’” the affidavit states.
Nutter wrote in the affidavit that he “has conducted over 100 interviews and spent many hours conducting this investigation” and he “is very familiar with the details of this investigation and feels it is reasonable to believe that Lueathel Childs is the person responsible for the forged signatures on the petitions submitted to Caroline County and that her motive for doing this would have been to impress members of the Chaney Corporation in hopes that the Chaney Corporation would give Arthur Cunningham a job if the mine was approved.”
No charges have been filed as of Thursday afternoon, but Nutter believes the Sheriff’s Office will be filing charges soon.
Forgery of a public record is a Class 4 felony under Virginia state law, punishable by a jail sentence of two to 10 years and a fine of up to $100,000.
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