Charges dismissed against former Charles City sheriff candidate

Charges against a former candidate for Charles City sheriff have been dismissed due to a technicality in which the prosecutor in the case failed to enter into evidence required documentation as outlined in the indictments handed up last year by a circuit court grand jury.

Friday afternoon following two days of testimony in the trial of Vance Richards, nine felony counts of providing false statements on required forms submitted to the county’s voter registrar were thrown out by circuit court Judge B. Elliott Bondurant. The trial reached the juror instruction phase but never landed in the hands of the jury for deliberations.

Shortly after preparation of juror instructions began, defense attorneys Tom Roberts and Frank McFadden asked for dismissal of all charges. Burden of proof, they argued, in the form of a statement of unlawful conduct and accompanying penalties had not been placed in evidence by special prosecutor Matthew Kite.

Over Kite’s objections, Bondurant agreed with the defense attorneys’ motion, dismissing the case and later advising jurors that an element of the indictments had not proven by Kite.

During the trial, Kite challenged that on June 5, 2015, Richards had filed paperwork containing false home addresses with the registrar. The prosecuting attorney said Richards lived in West Point but had listed two places in Charles City as his residence. Kite emphasized that the defendant had not established a domicile or abode in the county, making it illegal for him to run for sheriff, which he did unsuccessfully in the November 2015 election.

Defense attorneys, however, argued that the defendant intended to move to the county and that difficulties at the first location forced him to move to a second home. Testimony from defense witnesses and some prosecution witnesses said they saw him on the property of the second home, but not many times.

Testimony from Richards’ wife, Charlene, said he did return to his West Point address for a period of time to stay there during the transition into the home into Charles City.