After spending his first night back in the United States in a northern Virginia jail following a four-year trip in the Persian Gulf, Walter Fauntroy, Washington, D.C.’s former congressional delegate, sought to be released to face a bad check charge in Maryland.
But a Loudoun County, Virginia, judge on Tuesday said she would continue to hold Fauntroy, for at least a few more hours, until his attorneys can furnish evidence that a judge in Prince George’s County, Maryland – where the civil rights activist has been wanted on an outstanding bench warrant – officially approved his release.
Fauntroy’s attorney’s could only produce a faxed document with a Prince George’s judge’s signature saying he should be let go on his personal recognizance in advance of a July 20 court date. But Loudoun Judge Deborah Welsh demanded that Fauntroy’s team provide an official court order. He has until 1 p.m to provide that order, otherwise he might spend a another day in jail.
The former congressman appeared via video teleconference, clad in what appeared to be the same red shirt he was wearing Monday when he was arrested at Dulles International Airport after he had landed on a Emirates Airline flight. He sat in front of two other prisoners dressed in orange and white jumpsuits.
“Yes! I’m here!” he said when the judge asked if he was following the proceedings.
His wife, Dorothy, came and simply stared at the video monitor with a straight face.
Fauntroy, 83, has been wanted by authorities for more than four years for allegedly having written a bad check for $55,000 to a catering company for a private inauguration ball he planned for President Obama in 2009 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor, Maryland. In January 2012, shortly after a bench warrant was issued for Fauntroy to appear in Prince George’s County on the bad check charge, the former civil rights activist left for a trip abroad, wound up in the United Arab Emirates, and never came home
He finally returned Monday, but was promptly arrested at Dulles and transported to the Loudoun County jail.
Fauntroy’s absence for the past several years mystified his friends and former colleagues, not only because he eluded the criminal charge, but also because he left behind Dorothy Fauntroy, his wife of nearly 59 years. In the years since he’s been gone, she had to file for bankruptcy on the couple’s behalf, and the Bank of New York Mellon began foreclosure proceedings to take away their longtime home in Northwest Washington because they owed more than $146,000 in mortgage payments.
In the bad check case, one of his attorneys, Arthur Reynolds, said he’s paid some of the money back to the catering company.
Last week, in an interview from his home in Ajman, just north of Dubai, Fauntroy said he believed his bad check charge had been resolved and expressed doubt he’d be arrested upon his long-anticipated arrival at Dulles.
But, Johnny Barnes, one of his other attorneys, said authorities reissued a bench warrant for his arrest on Monday. When Fauntroy landed from his Emirates Airlines flight at about 8:15 a.m. that day, customs and border protection officers arrested him. He was booked by lunch time.
Up until recently, with the exception of his closest friends and advisers, the public had no clue what Fauntroy had been doing abroad. Not even his own wife said she knew. But Dorothy Fauntroy, nearly 82, has been steadfast in her support of her husband, who over his long career has frequently traveled abroad, including a 2011 trip to Libya to meet with Moammar Gaddafi – a journey during which many feared he’d been killed or died.
In May, The Washington Post published a story revealing that Walter Fauntroy had been living in the U.A.E. trying to secure funding for a humanitarian project that would install green-energy power plants and other devices to supply poor people around the world with clean water and energy. There was no evidence he obtained any money whatsoever for the project.
But Fauntroy had also become obsessed with numerous conspiracy theories that U.S. or Persian Gulf intelligence operatives were monitoring or blocking his phone calls and emails. He fretted about the power of Jews and worried about the “four Aristocratic banking families” running the world’s financial affairs.
Last week, in a telephone interview with The Post from the U.A.E., Fauntroy sounded those same alarms. He insisted he had all of his mental faculties, even though he said he had been hospitalized four times after having passed out due to heat exhaustion. He said he was finally coming home because he had obtained the funding necessary to start his green-energy projects and because State Department officials in the Persian Gulf tracked him down and offered to help get him to Washington.
Barnes, one of his attorneys, said friends chipped in to pay for the Emirates flight home.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Ian Shapira
