An Albemarle County grand jury issued three indictments Monday, charging the county’s former registrar with felony counts alleging forgery and embezzlement. A warrant for Lauren Eddy’s arrest was issued Thursday morning.
Eddy resigned in August amid an investigation into her use of county-issued purchasing cards, also known as P-cards. She had worked in the registrar’s office for roughly 17 years and had served as the registrar and director of elections for roughly three of those.
The Daily Progress’ efforts to reach Eddy and learn whether she has obtained counsel were not immediately successful.
According to search warrants filed in late August, police wanted to learn whether Eddy had used her P-card for personal purchases with the YouTube online video service and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The documentation for the search warrants asserts that there was no public purpose for such expenditures.
One of Eddy’s charges is a count of forging a public document, a Class 4 felony under Virginia law. More serious are two counts of embezzlement, which the state treats as larceny with a potential penalty as high as 20 years in prison. However, in Albemarle, property crimes rarely result in active jail time for someone, such as Eddy, without a prior criminal record.
For instance, 37-year-old Yvonne Elizabeth Hillman, a one-time administrator at the foundation supporting the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, pleaded guilty in August to embezzling more than $20,000 from that foundation and received a suspended sentence. Hillman’s lawyer represented that single motherhood pushed Hillman into poor decision-making.
Eddy has also experienced hardship. In 2021, her husband David Eddy Jr. died at the age of 41.
Eddy’s departure from the registrar’s office on Aug. 12 came less than three weeks after the Albemarle Electoral Board lauded her at a July 24 meeting "for doing a splendid job" following a positive performance review.
In early September, the board tapped Debbie Wilson, who spent more than a decade as registrar in the city of Harrisonburg, as Albemarle’s interim registrar. The county has been advertising for a new registrar at an annual salary of $136,617.
Eddy’s exit came at a fraught time: Not only is Election Day less than a month away, but two other Albemarle election officers resigned in her wake. Elections manager Erin Davis and chief deputy registrar Jeania Pace, submitted resignations effective Sept. 5.
Officials have asserted that neither Davis nor Pace is under investigation, and Pace is listed in the search warrant documentation as a potential witness in Eddy’s criminal case. Another potential witness named in the paperwork is program manager Dino Tubin, while Jacob Sumner, the county’s chief financial officer, is listed as a cooperating victim’s representative.
In 2014, the registrar in neighboring Charlottesville, Sheri Iachetta Owen, resigned after she was charged with six felonies related to the misuse of public funds. Owen was accused of spending more than $7,000 in taxpayer funds to cover cellphone bills for a former electoral board member and for her husband. Owen pleaded guilty the following year to four misdemeanor counts of intentionally removing city property and received four 90-day sentences with all jail time suspended.
Election Day is Nov. 4, and voters across the commonwealth will be voting for the next governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. All 100 delegates also are up for election this year.
In Albemarle, voters in the Jack Jouett, Rio and Samuel Miller districts will also cast ballots for supervisors, but the only contested race is in the Samuel Miller District, where Democrat Fred Missel faces Republican Scott Smith.
Early, in-person voting began Sept. 19 and will run through Nov. 1. The deadline to register to vote, update registrations and receive a vote-by-mail ballot is Oct. 24.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com