Corruption in the City - Active List of Current Investigations

This investigation centers on the Newport News Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, where Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts (APA) reports have flagged a recurring pattern of financial mismanagement. These audits expose systemic failures in handling court costs, fines, and receivable accounts:

• Most Recent Report: Improper assessments or billing in nearly 30% of cases tested (16 of 56).

• Prior Report: Billing and collection errors in over 25% of cases tested (22 of 80), alongside a failure to establish receivable accounts in 7 out of 12 tested cases.

Both investigations are fully documented and expose severe vulnerabilities in financial controls, public safety, FOIA compliance, and overall government accountability in Newport News. Complete record packets are available upon request, including timelines, internal emails, work orders, calls for service, FOIA correspondence, and the official APA reports.

The Prime Contractor: The city awarded the contract to Carolina Marine Structures, Inc. (CMS) in July 2022.

Initial Price Tag: The original contract amount was $6,628,412.97.

The Stoppage: Contractor Bankruptcy and Default

Work on the amphitheater and the broader James River Strand ground to a halt in late 2025.

• The Collapse: Carolina Marine Structures, Inc. went bankrupt, defaulting on multiple municipal contracts across the region (including a boardwalk reconstruction project in the Town of Cape Charles).

• The Timeline: The City of Newport News officially placed the James River Strand project on a "Construction Hold due to Contractor Default" beginning on November 4, 2025.

• Project Completion at Default: The city's engineering logs indicate the project was hovering around 84% to 88% complete when CMS went under. Over $4.2 million had already been paid out to the contractor.

Current Status and Financial Fallout (May 2026)

With the original contractor bankrupt, the city is now navigating the complex process of using surety bonds to get the site finished.

• Surety Involvement: Harco Insurance, the surety company backing the project, has stepped in. In mid-April 2026, a surveyor hired by the surety conducted a full job site survey to assess the existing conditions left behind by CMS.

• Liquidated Damages: Due to the default and the resulting delays, Newport News Engineering has assessed massive liquidated damages against the contractor, currently listed in project logs at $1,684,412.97.

• Next Steps: The city attorney has been processing an Erosion & Sediment (E&S) Control Agreement with Harco Insurance. A new E&S contractor was scheduled to finally resume basic site work in mid-April 2026. The official project closeout, originally slated for early 2023, is now tentatively pushed to mid-2027.

What was billed as a major music festival has devolved into the biggest display of incompetence and poor leadership this city has experienced in years. The event went from boasting huge artist lineups and over 10,000 expected ticket sales to a free gathering sponsored by struggling citizens who can barely afford groceries, let alone foot the bill for overpriced, washed-up, and mostly unknown acts. With only five musical artists performing and over twenty guest speakers on the schedule, this has become more of a lecture series than an actual music festival.

It is highly questionable that the Newport News City Council approved a $3 million grant on December 9, 2025, to launch a massive Memorial Day music festival in the Yard District, just one month after the adjacent James River Strand amphitheater was placed on an indefinite construction hold. Even though the city pushed forward with the event to boost downtown tourism, the lack of the completed waterfront venue forced organizers to drastically scale down the festival's capacity from 30,000 to just 8,000 attendees. Why commit millions of taxpayer dollars to a flagship festival when the primary infrastructure project in that exact footprint had just suffered a major contractor default?

The People Express $5 Million Airport Scandal

The Core Issue

In 2014, officials overseeing the Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport secretly used public funds to guarantee a $5 million private bank loan for a heavily indebted start-up airline, People Express Airlines (PEX).

Key Figures & The Cover-Up

• Ken Spirito: The former Executive Director of the Peninsula Airport Commission. Spirito spearheaded the deal, intentionally misapplying state and federal grant money—originally earmarked for airport capital improvements—to serve as cash collateral for a TowneBank loan to PEX.

• Michael Morisi: The former president of People Express. Despite the airline's failure to secure private investment and its massive liabilities, Morisi secured the public backing. After the airline inevitably collapsed, Morisi opened hidden bank accounts to divert insurance payouts and pay himself back-salary, intentionally lying to creditors.

• The Secrecy: The initial commitment to back the loan was made by the Peninsula Airport Commission in a closed-door session, purposefully obscuring public notice. Spirito later provided false information to the FAA and committed perjury in civil depositions to hide the paper trail of the funds used for collateral.

The Financial Fallout

• People Express operated for barely three months out of Newport News before suspending service in September 2014 and defaulting on the loan.

• Because of the secret guarantee, the Peninsula Airport Commission was legally forced to step in, using over $4.5 million in public money to pay off the airline's debt to the bank.

• Final audits revealed that $3.55 million of those funds were grants provided by the Virginia Department of Aviation meant for physical infrastructure, not business incentives. The scandal caused massive financial losses for the airport and led the state to temporarily freeze further aviation grant funding.

The Incident On October 15, 39-year-old Quandrell Williams was shot outside a Newport News residence. When Newport News Fire Department (NNFD) first responders arrived, they failed to follow protocol and incorrectly declared Williams dead at the scene. He reportedly lay there alive for more than 40 minutes before medical personnel realized he was still breathing and transported him to the hospital. He died 10 days later. Two firefighters were ultimately fired following an internal investigation.

OEMS Inaction Investigative journalists obtained emails revealing that the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS)—the state agency responsible for overseeing EMS protocols—was made aware of the catastrophic breach in care by the NNFD. Despite knowing about the incident, OEMS did not open an independent state-level investigation into how first responders mistakenly pronounced a living person dead.

The FOIA Refusal by Newport News To uncover how the city handled the botched medical response, media outlets filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking emails, texts, internal reports, and body-camera footage from the Newport News Police Department and city officials.

The city largely denied the requests, shielding key details from the public through heavy redactions and withholdings:

• Withheld Documents: The city refused to release over 100 pages of documents, including a comprehensive 80-page internal administrative investigation report regarding the fire department's response.

• Cited Exemptions: Officials justified the refusal by citing FOIA exemptions for personnel records and written advice from legal counsel (attorney-client privilege).

• Police Body Camera Footage Withheld: The Newport News Police Department declined to release eight body-camera videos from the scene. They argued the footage was exempt from FOIA because it remains part of the ongoing criminal investigative file against the man accused of shooting Williams.

• Efforts to Skirt Disclosure: Text messages that were turned over showed that City Manager Alan Archer and Mayor Phillip Jones were actively taking precautions and coordinating to avoid the disclosure of information regarding the incident through the FOIA process.

Aftermath For months, the city did not publicly acknowledge the mistake or the subsequent disciplining of the first responders until media reports broke the story. Williams' family has since filed a notice of claim signaling their intent to sue the city, the Newport News Police Department, and Emergency Medical Services employees for gross negligence.