The town manager and the vice mayor of Purcellville, Virginia, made their first appearance in court Monday morning after they were arrested and charged with several felonies last week.
After proceedings finished, one former Virginia State Senator told reporters the case is “the weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
“This is lawfare of the most despicable fashion,” former State Sen. Dick Black told reporters outside the Loudoun County Courthouse.
He appeared in support of former Purcellville Mayor and current Town Manager Kwasi Fraser and Purcellville Vice Mayor and former police officer Carl “Ben” Nett, who face felony charges of bid rigging and commercial fraud surrounding a consulting contract to investigate the feasibility of eliminating the town’s police department.
Black told reporters that in his entire career, he had not seen a grand jury gathered over such a small contract.
“This boils down to a single, $12,000 petty contract, a one-time consulting contract to do a little study about the police department to see, is there a more efficient way of doing things,” Black said. “You have to ask the question, ‘Well, why, if all we’re talking about is a $12,000 contract, not the size of replacing your home air conditioner, why is there a grand jury? Why is there state level action?’”
Black told reporters that he may eventually be a witness in the case and implied both men are being targeted due to Nett’s opposition of a proposed land annexing and development.
A spokesperson for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office told WTOP after Nett’s arrest last week, that there was a vacancy in the police chief position and a consultant was brought in to look at department restructuring.
“It is asserted that Mr. Nett wanted to be the police chief, wanted to keep the police department and be named the police chief. It is asserted that he had some involvement with the bidding process on the consultant. It is asserted, furthermore, that when that did not go his way, somehow this discussion of dissolving the police department then came about,” Tom Julia, the communications director at the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, told WTOP.
During the first hearing, attorneys representing both Fraser and Nett said they planned to file several motions in the coming days and were not ready to schedule any trial now.
Special prosecutor Eric Olsen said he would file to join the two counts of rigged government bidding and commercial fraud for both men.
Nett is also accused of using a police database to research political opponents.
Fraser’s attorney, Charles King, said he plans to request Loudoun County Circuit Court judges to recuse themselves and let a Supreme Court-appointed judge take over the case.
He also plans to file a motion to unseal the transcript from the grand jury.
The next hearing for both men is scheduled for Sept. 4.
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