Just before he was sentenced to prison last year, Bob Graham, former director of the Wyoming County Council on Aging, gave a defiant courtroom speech, casting blame for his conviction on an overzealous U.S. Attorney's Office and the news media.
Just before he was sentenced to prison last year, Bob Graham, former director of the Wyoming County Council on Aging, gave a defiant courtroom speech, casting blame for his conviction on an overzealous U.S. Attorney's Office and the news media.
Now that his one-count conviction has been overturned by a federal appeals court and he has been out of prison for three weeks, Graham isn't taking a single word back.
"I've taken this kind of personally," said Graham in an interview last week. "I think it was a cheap shot."
Former Wyoming aging council chief Bob Graham blames prosecutors and the media for his conviction.
Graham's conviction came after a weeklong trial that was technically about embezzlement. What really intrigued the public, though, was testimony about strippers, exotic vacations, a hot tub in a senior citizens facility, along with giant-screen televisions, tanning beds - and Graham's big salary.
It was the salary - news reports said he was paid more than $457,000 annually - that first captured got the public's attention.
That's an amount Graham said he never received. What kept the story alive, he said, was what Graham calls "rehash journalism."
"Thirty out of 60 days, I was on the front page of The Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail," he said. "The stories weren't news. It was just rehash, rehash, rehash."
He said at the time he had no defense from the "media lynch mob."
"I just had to stand back and take it," he said.
Indicted on 39 counts, Graham beat back all but one at trial, for illegally cashing in $31,000 in retirement pay. The 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction last month.
Graham said he now plans to write three books and establish new businesses serving senior citizens.
While it might be similar to the work he did through a subsidiary of the Wyoming County Council on Aging - All Care Home and Community Services - this time, Graham's organization won't be a nonprofit and won't involve the Medicare program, with all its rules and regulations.
Instead, it will be fee-for-service business that will handle such things as staying with elderly people while family members are away.
"I just won't be bound by all the Medicaid rules," Graham said.
Lots of agencies know how to perform only under Medicaid rules, he said, "so I will keep busy."
It's been an interesting time for the 61-year-old Wyoming County native.
His trial became the talk of the state when prosecutors marched out a stripper to testify on the opening day of the trial. She said he spent thousands on her, took her on exotic vacations and paid for her breast implants.
"If you're counting on me apologizing for going to a strip club, forget it," he said last week.
He points out that his forays at the Southern Xposure club in Mercer County came during a time when he was divorced. "When I was going to strip bars, I was single," he said.
Graham said one assistant prosecutor later said the stripper's testimony was "just for the news media."
Prosecutors then marched out elderly Council on Aging board members to testify that, while they liked Graham personally, they did not know what they approved for his salary. In a number of instances, they had no idea what business the board conducted.
That included the $185,000-a-year multiyear contract he wrote and was receiving payments under when most senior citizen center directors in the state were making around $42,000.
Graham said he believes he deserved that higher pay because he had an expanded program. "They were supervising 20 people," he said, "and I was supervising over 400."
His senior programs were some of the best, he contends. "We were the Rolls Royce of senior programs when I left down there," he said.
Sent to the minimum-security prison in Morgantown, the Vietnam veteran said his stay there wasn't as bad as the time he spent at war.
Still, Graham returned with a large scar across his nose and a story of having to stay in solitary confinement for days after a guard insisted he had been in a fight when he hadn't.
That's why he plans to write a book about his prison experience, he said.
"People need to have an understanding of what can happen to you," Graham said.
With that book, he also wants to establish a service for those preparing to go to prison, letting them know what to take inside with them and how to act when they arrive.
"The prison system's all about money," Graham said.
That's something Graham knew about before prison.
Just before he was sentenced to prison last year, Bob Graham, former director of the Wyoming County Council on Aging, gave a defiant courtroom speech, casting blame for his conviction on an overzealous U.S. Attorney's Office and the news media.
Now that his one-count conviction has been overturned by a federal appeals court and he has been out of prison for three weeks, Graham isn't taking a single word back.
"I've taken this kind of personally," said Graham in an interview last week. "I think it was a cheap shot."
Graham's conviction came after a weeklong trial that was technically about embezzlement. What really intrigued the public, though, was testimony about strippers, exotic vacations, a hot tub in a senior citizens facility, along with giant-screen televisions, tanning beds - and Graham's big salary.
It was the salary - news reports said he was paid more than $457,000 annually - that first captured got the public's attention.
That's an amount Graham said he never received. What kept the story alive, he said, was what Graham calls "rehash journalism."
"Thirty out of 60 days, I was on the front page of The Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail," he said. "The stories weren't news. It was just rehash, rehash, rehash."
He said at the time he had no defense from the "media lynch mob."
"I just had to stand back and take it," he said.
Indicted on 39 counts, Graham beat back all but one at trial, for illegally cashing in $31,000 in retirement pay. The 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction last month.
Graham said he now plans to write three books and establish new businesses serving senior citizens.
While it might be similar to the work he did through a subsidiary of the Wyoming County Council on Aging - All Care Home and Community Services - this time, Graham's organization won't be a nonprofit and won't involve the Medicare program, with all its rules and regulations.
Instead, it will be fee-for-service business that will handle such things as staying with elderly people while family members are away.
"I just won't be bound by all the Medicaid rules," Graham said.
Lots of agencies know how to perform only under Medicaid rules, he said, "so I will keep busy."
It's been an interesting time for the 61-year-old Wyoming County native.
His trial became the talk of the state when prosecutors marched out a stripper to testify on the opening day of the trial. She said he spent thousands on her, took her on exotic vacations and paid for her breast implants.
"If you're counting on me apologizing for going to a strip club, forget it," he said last week.
He points out that his forays at the Southern Xposure club in Mercer County came during a time when he was divorced. "When I was going to strip bars, I was single," he said.
Graham said one assistant prosecutor later said the stripper's testimony was "just for the news media."
Prosecutors then marched out elderly Council on Aging board members to testify that, while they liked Graham personally, they did not know what they approved for his salary. In a number of instances, they had no idea what business the board conducted.
That included the $185,000-a-year multiyear contract he wrote and was receiving payments under when most senior citizen center directors in the state were making around $42,000.
Graham said he believes he deserved that higher pay because he had an expanded program. "They were supervising 20 people," he said, "and I was supervising over 400."
His senior programs were some of the best, he contends. "We were the Rolls Royce of senior programs when I left down there," he said.
Sent to the minimum-security prison in Morgantown, the Vietnam veteran said his stay there wasn't as bad as the time he spent at war.
Still, Graham returned with a large scar across his nose and a story of having to stay in solitary confinement for days after a guard insisted he had been in a fight when he hadn't.
That's why he plans to write a book about his prison experience, he said.
"People need to have an understanding of what can happen to you," Graham said.
With that book, he also wants to establish a service for those preparing to go to prison, letting them know what to take inside with them and how to act when they arrive.
"The prison system's all about money," Graham said.
That's something Graham knew about before prison.
The Council on Aging was the largest senior citizen agency in West Virginia when he was terminated.
Federal officials base Medicaid funding for senior programs on population, Graham said. Being in a small, rural county, Graham had stretched that out.
"I built a big Medicaid program," he said, and then went looking for more ways to enrich both himself and the nonprofit agency.
"I went out and found other things to make money," he said.
That was mainly All Care Home and Community Services, a business owned by the Council on Aging that provides home-health nurses and other in-home care and services for senior citizens.
Only about 10 percent of the Wyoming Council on Aging's money came from federal or state grants. "We became the largest in-house services program in the state of West Virginia," he said.
The Council on Aging's All-Care branch provided in-home services across Southern West Virginia as far north as Charleston. "I came in and served the population," Graham said.
When he was terminated, the Council on Aging had 50 employees in Kanawha County alone and more than 400 altogether.
Until just before his indictment in 2003, Graham had not cashed out his vacation or sick leave, he said. "I would've never cashed out one sick-leave day without the investigation," he said, noting that under his contract he would have been eligible to get all that money when he quit.
Then he was indicted for just that.
Graham said the most he ever got in a year was around $300,000, including salary, bonus and buy-out vacation time.
But afraid of what was to come, he said he told his board members they all needed attorneys. "I said, 'Look folks, these people will starve you to death,'" he said.
Instead, he won without complete starvation. He proudly points out that he was not forced to use public defenders during his appeal, something he believes federal prosecutors try to do that causes most defendants to lose.
That's why he's in a legal battle with the state now, trying to recover about $260,000 worth of his individual retirement account the state has frozen.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Silas Taylor declined comment for this story. Previously, he has said he wants to collect the IRA money for the benefit of the Council on Aging, and the state has filed a civil lawsuit against Graham.
Graham notes that he was found not guilty in federal court of all charges involving the IRA. He believes that legal battle could continue for a while.
"I might get enough to pay bills, but most of it's going to lawyers," he said.
That case remains tied up in Kanawha Circuit Court.
Other subjects Graham touched upon in a long, sometimes rambling interview included:
The best thing that happened to him in prison might have been meeting and having discussions with Roger Blackwell, a former Ohio State University professor called "The Father of Consumer Behavior," who is serving a six-year term for insider trading.
Another book he wants to write is about the entire experience, although he really doesn't expect to make money from it. "But I'll have a complete history there," he said.
"The tanning bed was mine," he said. It was in a 30- by 30-foot room on the top floor of the old Itmann school that served as Council on Aging's headquarters. It was no fancy "penthouse apartment" that some news media reported, he said. "I guess I'm vain enough to have a tanning bed," he said. "So what?"
He has no problems with the U.S. Attorney's Office. "I don't want to blast the federal courts. I'm through with [U.S. Attorney for Southern West Virginia] Chuck Miller," he said.
He has nothing to hide because the court found he "dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's."
The Council on Aging did own the hot tub in the upstairs apartment on the Itmann property. The daughter of a client suggested it, saying her mother liked using one. Graham said he never used the Council on Aging's hot tub because he had one at home. "But in all honesty," he said, "I thought a hot tub was a good idea for senior citizens."
He admitted that some Council on Aging employees also worked for him personally, but then pulled out a thick, yellow packet full of cashed checks. None worked on Council on Aging time, he said, and all were paid. "I paid them and I paid them well, and I would've felt bad if I didn't," he said while displaying the cashed checks.
He did hire family members to work for the Council on Aging, but he pointed out that his current wife, Carol, worked for Council on Aging for years before their 2004 marriage. A daughter worked part-time in Princeton, one son worked full-time in Princeton while another son worked part-time during summers.
"All of that was presented to the board for their approval," he said.
He hired them, he said, because he trusted his own kids and justifies it by saying it is "not uncommon" in other senior centers or government offices. "Are there too many Manchins that work in state government right now?" he said.
He did place a big-screen TV in his office, but that was after another kept in the Council on Aging's dining hall was destroyed by floodwaters. He hung smaller televisions from the ceiling in the dining room where they would not be destroyed.
To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5198.
Keep it clean. Comments that are obscene, sexually explicit, racist or offensive will be removed. If you wouldn’t say it to your mother, don’t post it here.
Be civil. Don’t threaten to hurt anyone. Personal attacks, insults or harassment of any kind are subject to removal.
Be truthful. Don’t lie about a situation or person.
Keep it brief. Keep your comment to one post. Redundant or multiple posts in a row aren’t allowed.
Stay on task. Stick to the topics relevant to the story and discussion.
Let us know about offensive comments. Click the “Report Abuse” button if you think a comment is against the rules.
Post a comment