"Secret account" motorcycles being returned to dealer

OFF THE WIRE
http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/jan/28/wsmain01-quotsecret-accountquot-motorcycles-being--ar-733056/

YADKINVILLE --


A Harley-Davidson motorcycle used by former Yadkin County Sheriff Mike Cain and paid for through a secret account has been returned to the dealer, and two motorcycles used by his top deputies are being returned.
The motorcycles were the key to investigators finding the secret Sheriff Mike Cain Officers Fund that Cain had set up at a bank using his own Social Security number, authorities said. The account included money he'd diverted from operations at the jail.
Cain, who used his Harley for trips to a national rally in Sturgis, S.D., as well as to the beach, resigned as sheriff Wednesday morning. He also used money in the account for personal items such as riding chaps, a leather jacket, a cowboy hat and cowboy boots.
Minutes after he resigned in the wake of a State Bureau of Investigation probe, Cain pleaded guilty in Superior Court to 9 misdemeanor counts related to misusing the money. He must pay $20,000 in restitution, do 200 hours of community service and surrender his law enforcement certification, among other punishments.
Shortly after, in District Court, Maj. Danny Widener pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts of private use of a publicly owned vehicle in connection with his use of one of the Harleys. Lt. Tom Helms entered an Alford plea on one count of private use of a publicly owned vehicle. Under an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction.
Both Widener and Helms were working at the sheriff's office on Thursday.
The sheriff's secretary, Lynn Crater, resigned Thursday. She had been working at the sheriff's office since 1988. She was not charged in connection with the crimes.
The sheriff's daughter, Heather Cain Shew, resigned from her clerical job in the sheriff's office last Friday, the day her father notified county commissioners that he intended to resign. She had been hired last June.
Ricky Oliver, who was voted in as sheriff by county commissioners on Wednesday, said he hasn't fired anyone or asked for resignations. He spent much of his first day making sure operations were being properly carried out on patrol, at the jail and for the session of Superior Court that ended Thursday.
Oliver said he's talking to investigators now to determine the extent of anyone's involvement in Cain's crimes before making any personnel decisions.
He said that the office has a lot of good people who have done their jobs and weren't involved in any wrongdoing, but that morale is extremely low and the agency must rebuild its reputation in the community.
"It's going to take time and the opportunity for officers to get out on the streets and do their jobs," he said. "I'm going to do the things I can, such as returning the motorcycles which were a part of that, and ensure there's no abuse in these areas. The public is going to draw their own judgments after they've seen the performance of this agency."
The Sheriff Mike Cain Officers Fund was established on Oct. 26, 2004, with deposit of a $492.60 check from Pay-Tel Communications, prosecutors said. Pay-Tel is a company that provides telephone services for inmates in jails and prisons.
It's standard practice that counties receive commissions or other payments from companies that do business in jails. Those monies, by law, must be deposited in the county's general fund.
But without the knowledge of county commissioners, Cain set up the Yadkin County Detention Center Commissary Fund to accept money for those kinds of receipts, which were then moved into his secret Sheriff Mike Cain Officers Fund, prosecutors said.
Nearly $40,000 was moved into the secret account from payments from Pay-Tel, Northwest Food Service, Pepsi Bottling and the commissary fund from 2004 until Aug. 31, 2010.
Meanwhile and independent of the ongoing SBI investigation, the county's new auditors, Martin Starnes & Associates, found the Yadkin County Detention Center Commissary Fund that previous auditors had missed. The audit was released to board members in late October. The county's finance officer, Sheron Church, resigned Nov. 5.
Yadkin County, which paid $42,500 for its audit, has so far agreed to pay auditors an additional amount of more than $32,000 for further services related to the sheriff's secret checking account issue, including reviewing internal controls and training employees to use software to implement internal controls.
District Attorney Tom Horner said the Sheriff Mike Cain Officers Fund paid $15,595 for motorcycle-related expenses and lease payments. It also paid $12,193 for Christmas-related expenses such as a party and Christmas bonuses, including bonuses to Cain, Widener and Helms.
It paid out $35,184 for cancer services fundraising.
Sixty checks were written for "Cash" and added up to $10,946. It's uncertain what those checks paid for.
Prosecutors said some money in the account was donated by people who wanted to support the sheriff's office, but that money was mingled with money that should have gone to the county. Some of the spending from the secret account was for things that might have been legitimate, reimbursable expenses, prosecutors said, but others were for things such as Cain's personal golfing expenses.
Horner said he consulted with Jim Coman, the state's Department of Justice's senior deputy attorney general in charge of special prosecutions, and they were in agreement on how to resolve the cases.
Among the issues was the expense of moving a trial outside of Yadkin County and the potential legal fight that Cain could have waged in seeking to fight removal as an elected official.
Horner said if it wasn't for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle issue, the secret account would not have been discovered.
"He had crossed the line and it was in the best interest for the county and state to prosecute him and remove him from office," Horner said. "That was the key, that the county could heal and the sheriff's department do what it needed to do."