Inquiry for alleged Norfolk taxpayer privacy breach

NORFOLK

A special prosecutor will conduct an inquiry into allegations made by Commissioner of Revenue Sharon McDonald that Treasurer Thomas Moss Jr. and Deputy Treasurer Anthony L. Burfoot violated state privacy laws.

The allegation came in a Nov. 30 letter McDonald sent to Moss, the City Council and Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Underwood. McDonald says Moss and Burfoot had no right to provide documents containing confidential taxpayer information to The Virginian-Pilot last month.

Chief Judge Everett A. Martin of the Circuit Court appointed Bob Bushnell, the commonwealth's attorney in Henry County, on Dec. 9 to look into the charges.

Bushnell said Monday that he has asked Virginia State Police to determine whether any laws were broken. If the police find there were, Bushnell will ask for an investigation.

Burfoot, also the city's vice mayor, did not attend the meeting in which Moss provided the documents to the newspaper and denied playing any role.

Moss has asked Bushnell to investigate whether McDonald breached state code when she provided payment plans to companies that allowed them to avoid penalties on their business taxes. He said only he has the right to do so.

Moss and McDonald have been at odds over the payment plans since July, when Moss said he discovered that she set up the plans without his knowledge. He went public with the issue in October, he said, after she repeatedly refused to meet with him. Moss and McDonald are two of Norfolk's most prominent Democrats. Moss is the former speaker of the House of Delegates, and he helped wrest control of the Virginia Democratic Party from the Byrd Machine. McDonald begins her fourth term as a constitutional officer in January.

McDonald said her office has been arranging payment plans since before she landed her position. In November, Moss provided The Virginian-Pilot with documents showing that McDonald set up new payment plans on Nov. 6 for two fitness centers trading under the corporate name of N2Fitness Inc. and N2Fitness II Inc.

However, the documents included the gross receipts of the businesses. According to the state code, revealing that information could be a class 2 misdemeanor.

Moss admits he may have erred, but he said it wasn't intentional. "I'm confident nothing will come of this," he said. "The only thing I did was try to investigate how she was giving taxpayers preferential treatment."

After receiving the letter from McDonald, Underwood asked Martin, the chief judge, on Dec. 7 if he could be excused from the case, saying he was too close to Moss and McDonald, according to commonwealth's attorney spokes woman Amanda Howie.

Mayor Paul Fraim called the standoff troubling.

"Everybody is sorry it's come to this," he said. "I am reluctant to pull the council into this. But if we can help resolve this, we will try."

Moss and McDonald, who are state employees, are both involved in collecting taxes, but generally the commissioner's office assesses taxes and the treasurer's office collects them.

Moss said that the council could end the controversy by passing an ordinance stating which office has the authority to set up payment plans. "The treasurer is right" on the payment plans issue, Councilman Paul R. Riddick said.

The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of McDonald's Nov. 30 letter through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. In it, McDonald wrote that Moss "knowingly violated the law" in releasing a taxpayer's records "in direct defiance of the oath you swore to uphold."

McDonald said she "would never have provided the material that the treasurer has. That was confidential tax information. What kind of confidence should we have in the integrity of that office?"

McDonald has offered to meet with Moss to settle the issue. "I'll meet with her any time," Moss said. "But I will say just one thing to her. You are not allowed to collect taxes, so when will you stop?"

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com