Embezzling case gives Norfolk brass another shiner

At least he showed up for work. Shoot, he even may have gone in on Saturdays.

Turns out, that wasn't enough.

I'm talking about Norfolk's Ricky Freeman, of course. The 55-year-old former recreation supervisor and star of the latest chapter in the seemingly endless series "City Government Run Amok."

On Thursday we learned that the 27-year city employee - a man who was beloved in the neighborhood where he worked - was indicted on five counts of embezzlement. Freeman, who earned $49,900 a year, is charged with stealing $60,000 between 2008 and 2011. He was fired in June.

City officials may try to spin this as a case in which theft was detected and the suspect was immediately fired. Nice try. Some of us will have to be forgiven for seeing this as one more sign that something is seriously off kilter in Norfolk.

There's more to this story, of course. There always is.

Freeman was honored last year with an Employee Crime Prevention Award.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

If you're a fan of irony, you can watch the October 2010 ceremony online. I like the part where the honorees, including Freeman, are heralded as Norfolk's "everyday heroes."

At one point, Freeman stands on the stage, holding a certificate and some kind of crystal plaque as he's lauded as the guy who single-handedly evicted drug dealers and users from the Sherwood Forest Recreation center and brought in a law enforcement program that taught kids how to make "sound decisions" and "avoid breaking the law."

Ahem.

Freeman has not been convicted, of course. According to the news story by Pilot reporter Louis Hansen, Norfolk's fired crime fighter turned himself in to police this week.

Yet this latest bit of unpleasantness makes you wonder just how much bad news city residents will be forced to endure. At times it seems City Hall is trapped in some sort of bizarre stage production that's equal parts Greek tragedy and satire.

There was the scandal surrounding a no-show employee who remained on the Community Services Board payroll for 12 years after she stopped coming to the office. The public may never know the whole story behind that wacky - and costly - comedy of errors.

On a far more serious note, Norfolk earlier this year witnessed the tragic death of a sanitation worker in a truck that was curiously lacking some key safety devices. Several months before that, a police recruit died after being pummeled in the head at the city's academy.

It sometimes seems that Norfolk, the city that once fancied itself the cultural mecca of Hampton Roads, has instead become the capital of dubious dealings.

Consider this: In recent years there were charges of expense account chicanery and nepotism in the commissioner of the revenue's office, cheating scandals, low test scores and an alarming lack of accreditation in the public schools, and a weird willingness by politicians to risk millions on a dubious - and doomed - office project last winter.

This is also the city that seemed to tolerate massive mismanagement and inexplicable cost overruns in the pursuit of a light-rail system.

Taken alone, the case of a crime-fighting neighborhood leader accused of felonious behavior is discouraging, but minor. Added to the litany of dysfunction, it raises the question: Is there something in the culture of Norfolk City Hall that fosters such shenanigans?

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net,

PilotOnline.com/dougherty