Nottoway Emergency Squad insists that its former Executive Director, who pleaded Guilty last year to two felony counts of COVID relief fraud, didn’t take money from the Squad.
Those assurances were offered on the Courier-Record Facebook page by Assistant Captain David Williams in an exchange with “Johnny Walker” — an oustpoken Facebook profile that some have accused of being ‘fake’ and potentially belonging to a County official.
The debate broke-out after our July 23rd story — describing how citizen Richard Dykeman urged the Board of Supervisors on July 17th to move forward with a Squad audit — was posted on our Facebook page.
Mr. “Walker” posted that a Squad audit “should have been done a year ago — as soon as the Executive Director was sent to prison for stealing from the federal government by lying about COVID loans — the same Executive Director…who didn’t bother to tell anyone at the rescue squad he was going to federal prison until the day he left. They put this guy in charge of the money…and then asked the County for more money?”
“Walker” was referring to Brandon Lee Jenkins, 36, of Blackstone, who last November was sentenced to 12 months, one day in federal prison and was ordered to pay back “at least $295,648,” which he obtained through fraudulent loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jenkins entered a plea agreement in July 2024 but few knew he was in trouble until his arrest on Nov. 22, 2024 — one day after his sentencing in federal court.
Jenkins several weeks ago was released from prison to house arrest. The Courier-Record reached-out to him Friday via Facebook, where Jenkins recently has been posting photos, for comment. He declined, citing advice of his attorney.
Nottoway County this year is providing the Squad about $65,000 a month to help meet payroll costs.
The Board of Supervisors in May adopted a record $59.2 million budget that includes 22% increases in real estate and 27% increases in personal property tax rates. Those increases are due in large part to creation of new, separate levies to set aside money for EMS and Fire services.
Squad Assistant Captain David Williams assured “Walker” that the Squad had a nationally known firm conduct two audits that were presented to the County. “Also given was every piece of financial data, dating back at least two years. I have and continue to invite any citizen to come by and look for themselves.”
“Walker” countered to Williams: “You had an executive director who stole…from the federal government by creating fake businesses, and didn’t bother to tell you information critical to your organization. Why do you think it’s unreasonable for someone to question if that same Executive Director stole from you…how thoroughly was it looked into internally or by an outside firm? Everyone wants transparency when it comes to the government spending taxpayer money, so why is it unreasonable to ask the obvious questions when you’re spending taxpayer money?”
“Walker” also suggested possible ways money could have been stolen from the Squad, including “making-up fake businesses to pay himself or pocketing money coming in? Did you look into that possibility?”
Asst. Captain Williams said the auditing firm was PBMares and that copies of the audits for 2022 and 2023 were given to all County Supervisors.
“With regard to the Executive Director,” Williams responded, “he did not have access to any direct funds during this time. He was operationally tasked and did a lot of good things for NCES during his time. All of what happened with him was with his personal business and not associated with NCES at all. NCES didn’t know of anything until the day sentence was passed.”
After completing his active one-year plus one day sentence, Jenkins is to be on Supervised Release for three years.
Among stipulations of his release: “Defendant shall request to speak to Nottoway County Public School students twice a year regarding his conviction, sentence, and ways to move forward.”
Prior to his felony COVID fraud convictions, Jenkins in October 2023 had declared that he felt “exonerated” after 12 felony charges — that he embezzled from his former employer, Kenston Forest School — were nol prossed by the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. Jenkins was indicted by a Nottoway grand jury in July 2021 — four years after he parted company with Kenston, where he served as Director of Operations and Finance. Each of the 12 felony counts alleged that Jenkins took more than $200 between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017. A search warrant in the case suggested that the figure of missing funds could have been $30,000.
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