Jailed Roanoke City Councilman Robert Jeffrey was due back in court Wednesday to face further proceedings after a jury convicted him Tuesday of bilking the city out of $15,000 in pandemic relief funds.
Prosecutors have filed two sets of charges alleging financial crimes and won convictions Tuesday as the result of the first of two jury trials planned in Roanoke Circuit Court.
To conclude the first trial, jurors deliberated for about 25 minutes before convicting Jeffrey of two felony counts of obtaining money by false pretenses. A judge jailed the 52-year-old councilman to await sentencing.
Jury selection for the councilman’s planned second trial was as of late Tuesday afternoon set to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
A businessman turned politician, Jeffrey won office with 13,188 votes, or 14% of the vote, in November 2020. A Democrat, he has taken a keen interest in economic issues, including minority-owned startups. He is the publisher of ColorsVA magazine and has worked in real estate management.
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But his run-in with the law could derail his civic efforts for some time. Each of the charges on which Jeffrey was convicted carries a penalty of one to 20 years.
In addition, Jeffrey will be forced from office if any felony conviction against him is still standing after his final appeal, should he decide to do that. His attorney declined to comment Tuesday.
Council members plan to gather behind closed doors at their next meeting Monday to discuss what the “council should do moving forward,” Vice Mayor Trish White-Boyd said Tuesday night when asked about Jeffrey’s conviction and jailing.
She called Jeffrey’s situation “unfortunate” but declined to elaborate on account of the planned second trial.
Jeffrey has a right to request bail to obtain release from jail.
According to the first set of allegations, slightly more than a week after his election, Jeffrey falsified applications he submitted to the city’s Economic Development Authority for pandemic-relief grants. He received payment in December 2020. Jeffrey was sworn into office in January 2021.
The money was reserved only for small businesses with full-time employees that had been damaged by the pandemic, but while Jeffrey’s media and real estate companies had no full-time employees, his applications said they did, according to prosecution evidence.
Prosecutors presented their case Monday. Jeffrey’s attorney Jonathan Kurtin announced Tuesday he would present no evidence — by Jeffrey or any defense witness.
Kurtin used a portion of his closing argument to bring up the problem of identity theft and told jurors, “that is what this case is really about.”
Kurtin asked jurors to consider what Kurtin said was the possibility that one of Jeffrey’s employees submitted the falsified applications and not Jeffrey.
Kurtin also made a personal appeal, telling jurors that a conviction “will end his life. He will be a convicted felon. He’ll be sent to the penitentiary.”
Chief prosecutor Sheri Mason offered a rebuttal. She argued, in part, that if someone other than Jeffrey submitted the grant applications, it did not stand to reason that the thief would then deposit the checks the government issued to Jeffrey’s companies into those businesses’ bank accounts and, from there, allow the money to be used to pay what Mason said were some of Jeffrey’s bills.
She read from what she said was a list of disbursements, one of which sounded as if it was to an investment account in Jeffrey’s name. The account holder also bought goods from Sam’s Club, Victoria’s Secret, Best Buy, and Haley Toyota; paid the tab at several of Roanoke’s finer restaurants; and remitted child support, Mason said.
“Deflect, deflect, deflect. This is what happens when a defendant is pushed against the wall with the commonwealth’s evidence,” Mason said. “He [Kurtin] wants you to blame everyone but Mr. Jeffrey.”
“Maybe it was Santa Claus,” Mason said.
Pointing at Jeffrey with a red marker she had used earlier to diagram the elements of the crime, she said, “The defendant is the person who did these things.”
Soon after, jurors departed to deliberate. The jury consisted of eight whites and four Blacks.
As the parties reassembled in the courtroom of Judge David Carson to hear the verdicts, a uniformed sheriff’s deputy appeared for the first time in a position behind and to the side of Jeffrey.
As Carson read the convictions, Jeffrey, who was wearing a gray suit and a blue mask, looked down. Kurtin appeared to rub Jeffrey on the back.
Carson thanked jurors and invited them to leave.
When they cleared the room, Carson asked Jeffrey to stand. “I find you guilty as charged in these indictments,” Carson said. “You now stand stripped of the presumption of innocence …”
The judge called for deputies to take Jeffrey into custody. A door was standing open at the back of the courtroom for Jeffrey, who was immediately led out.
Carson said he would sentence Jeffrey in eight to 10 weeks on the counts for which he was convicted Tuesday.
For the second trial, Jeffrey is charged with embezzling money from the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization during a period of time in which he worked for the organization as a property manager. These alleged crimes began before Jeffrey took office and continued after he took office, prosecutors said.
The NNEO is a Roanoke nonprofit that provides affordable housing and has a long history of community development work.