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It is a waiting game for Bettie
Murchison, executive director of the
W.E.B. DuBois Community Development
Corporation, and her many supporters.
They are waiting for the Aug. 9 probable
cause hearing when they believe she will
be cleared of the two felony charges,
embezzlement and conversion of property,
she was charged with on July 18.
“I am sure she’ll be back
here on August tenth,” Marshall Harvey
said this week, indicating the CDC’s
office on South White Street. Harvey
stepped down as the chairman of the
CDC’s board of directors to act as
interim director after Murchison’s
arrest. She asked at that time to be
placed on administrative leave in
accordance with the corporation’s
policies.
Harvey said the staff
remains at work on the CDC programs and
plans, and indeed there was a training
session for counselors in Raleigh
Saturday. The 118 clients in the
counseling program live in Wake Forest,
Raleigh, Zebulon, Wendell and
Knightdale, and there are plans to
extend the service to the southern part
of the county around Fuquay-Varina.
Wake County Department of
Human Services did stop referring
clients to the mental health counseling
service the CDC operates. After a
meeting last week in which he and the
staff could show a business plan that
was in operation, Harvey said, that
suspension was rescinded this week with
a report he called “glowing.”
The board of directors
continues to back Murchison 100 percent,
Harvey said, although Mayor Vivian Jones
has resigned.
Jones said this week she
felt she should distance herself from
the situation. “I was concerned that
with the problems with Bettie that it
would compromise the mayor’s position.
If it was me personally I might not have
done that.”
The remaining members of the
board, who have voted unanimously to
support Murchison, are chairman Susan
Neeley, Harvey, Mike Johnson, Andy
Ammons, Greg Walton, Tina Horton, Brenda
Williamson and Haywood Massenburg.
Harvey said he has a candidate to fill
the vacancy.
There is widespread support
through the community, Harvey said.
Murchison’s attorney,
Charles Putterman, said he had had calls
from many people offering assistance.
“There’s been nothing but support.”
The matter began in April
when Lawrence (also called Eugene)
Perry, the president of the National
DuBois School Alumni Association and
Murchison’s first cousin, filed a
complaint against her with the Wake
Forest Police Department. An
investigation headed by Lt. Trent
Coleman led to Murchison’s arrest on
charges of embezzling over $169,000 from
the association and converting some
property, a van, to her use.
After the arrest, Murchison
was released the same day on a $200,000
cash bond. Harvey said he and
Murchison’s husband, James, were shocked
at the amount of the bond, given her
reputation.
Neither Harvey nor Putterman
understand why the questions of the
money and the van were not taken to
civil court.
“It is my personal belief
there was a lot of bad blood between the
leadership of the alumni association and
Mrs. Murchison,” Putterman said this
week. “This is the type of matter
typically taken up in civil court.”
At the end of February,
Murchison resigned as executive director
at the DuBois Center on North Franklin
Street after seven years in the
position. She cited differences with the
alumni association board for her
resignation, and those included the
unwillingness of the board and Perry to
continue the counseling program.
Murchison then formed the CDC to
continue the program, and Harvey,
Williamson and Massenburg were named as
the original board members.
Putterman said Murchison’s
actions did not satisfy the legal
definition of embezzlement.
Embezzlement, he said, is when money “is
used for a purpose other than its
intended purpose.”
Harvey said Murchison
transferred the $169,000 from one
account to another and used the money to
pay the costs of the counseling program
for January. Wake County had approved
the salaries and costs submitted at the
end of January and sent the payment
check in February.
Putterman and Harvey said
there was a clear paper trail and the
CDC accountant, Sheila Lee, had provided
that to investigators. “They know that
there was no wrongdoing. Nobody’s trying
to hide anything,” Putterman said.
At the end of March, when
the counseling employees were expecting
payment for their work in February,
Perry and the interim director at the
DuBois Center, George Jones, failed to
pay a number of employees and many of
those who did get checks were paid late
or only in part. The state Department of
Labor is still investigating the
employees’ claims.
As for the van, Harvey said
it was leased from a Ford dealership for
a program at the DuBois Center with
Murchison signing the lease because the
alumni association does not have a line
of credit. When she was in the process
of leaving, Harvey said, she offered to
sign the van over to the center and her
offer was turned down. She then
apparently traded in the van for another
one to use for the CDC.
The case is now in the hands
of Assistant District Attorney Susan
Spurlin, who declined any comment this
week.
Putterman says the Wake
Forest police did not consult a district
attorney before filing the charges, but
Coleman said this week they did consult
with the attorney on call, Frank
Jackson, twice before filing.
Asked why it was not treated
as a civil matter, Coleman said,
“Because that’s not a civil matter. If
an employee takes money, it’s a criminal
matter, period.”
Putterman is hoping Spurlin
will call him before Aug. 9 to say the
charges have been dropped. |
