The Virginia Way Rides On

the virgiia way

There you go again. Yesterday, Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms was charged with five counts of violating the state’s Conflict of Interest Act. The Virginian-Pilot’s article on the matter can be found here. Mayor Sessoms is accused of casting votes to benefit the borrowers of the bank where he served as president. To state what is hopefully obvious, Mayor Sessoms is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. As of now, the mayor has been accused, not convicted.

A rap on the knuckles. One stunning aspect of the accusation is the minimal penalty it carries. Prosecutor Michael Doucette said that the maximum penalty for these misdemeanor offenses would be $500 each. So, Mayor Sessoms faces a “worst case” scenario of paying $2,500 if convicted of abusing his office on five occasions. Less than the cost of a Rolex watch. Given “the Virginia Way,” it is probably needless to say that Mayor Sessoms will not need to step down from elected office even if he is convicted on all five counts. Why should a politician be asked to step down from elected office if all he or she has done is abuse that office for personal gain?  While five charges have been filed, the Virginian-Pilot thinks there is more to this story:

  • “The state’s criminal investigation ended about a year after The Virginian-Pilot first reported that Sessoms, 61, a former TowneBank president, had voted dozens of times on issues that benefited clients of the bank.” 

The song remains the same.  Assuming the charges against Mayor Sessoms are sustained this puts yet another nail in the coffin of Virginia’s political integrity. We now have Phil Hamilton (former member of the Virginia House of Delegates) doing nine and a half years in the big house, John W Forbes II (former Virginia Secretary of Finance) serving ten years in the pokey for embezzling $4M from the tobacco indemnification fund and the former governor and his wife hoping that the US Supreme Court will keep them out of the federal pen. Amazingly, these convictions come from a state that has essentially no ethics laws or regulations against elected politicians lining their pockets while in office. Imagine how lonely the next General Assembly session would be if Virginia actually legislated against political graft!

— D.J. Rippert