VIRGINIA BEACH - - Beach Borough City Councilman John Uhrin signed a document assuring an X-girlfriend he had destroyed all evidence of any nude images he’d video taped, photographed or had digitized of her.
Last month, however, Uhrin refused to give the woman assurances that he did not distribute images of her having consensual sex with him or that he did not publish them on the Internet.
(See also: Sex, Scandals, & Video Tapes and Political Scoundrels)
Uhrin and the victim, we’ve named her Jane Doe to protect her identity, were a couple in love in the early 2000s. They split in in 2002, but had a passing relationship into part of 2003.
Sonny Stallings, a prominent Virginia Beach lawyer, has been retained, he said, by Uhrin to 'try to work something out' with Doe. Stallings also told Doe he had instructed Uhrin to NOT sign the email sent in April of this year "because it would constitute an admission of things he shouldn't admit to," Doe told VNS. Stallings also will respond in next week's story to a series of questions posed to Uhrin by VNS. Uhrin, Stallings said, will not answer any of them.
Uhrin was quite the charmer and ‘lover-boy’ in the 2000s. Four of the women Doe said were photographed without their knowledge, all thought they were going to marry him. Three of the four told VNS they had expected to marry him.
Uhrin signed the accompaning document April 19, 2006. He refused to deal with the letter she sent him via email this April certifying he never distributed or published the images of the pair engaging in sex. He’d refused to respond to the letter at his home or his business email address and is fighting to prevent its release from his city council email account under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Uhrin has refused a FOIA query for the the email sent to his city council email address in mid-April. Using a questionable interpretation of the FOIA law, Nancy Bloom, the city’s Freedom of Information Specialist, forwarded only those email she said related to “public records” in the transaction of “public business.” FOIA experts say that the act cannot be used to hide embarrassing, threatening, or unpleasant emails.
In the recent case of X-Peninsula Del. Phil Hamilton, convicted of extortion and bribery in trading legislative influence for a job at ODU, Federal Judge Henry Hudson refused to allow Hamilton to claim emails between him and his wife sent on ODU, state computers and servers were private. Hudson ruled they were public and could be used in the trial.
There are no legal exemptions for “public business” and that term is not defined in federal or state case law on in the code. legal experts say. And the FOIA requires that an ‘index’ of ‘all’ emails (or documents if they be the issue) be released and then those eligible to be withheld are to be identified to the person making the request with a statement of reason.
No index of Uhrin’s emails for the period of April 1-25 were released, if compiled by Bloom, as required by law.
Jane Doe wrote Uhrin in the
April email: “John: As we have discussed before, I need to protect my standing in the community. I need your written assurances that I never consented for anyone to distribute to ANYONE, any pictures or videos of me in the nude or engaging in consensual sex that you secretly made. Assurances that you never distributed any pictures or videos of me in the nude or engaging in consensual sex by email or ordinary mail or any other means to ANYONE, including to your brother.”
Doe says that she believes Uhrin distributed images of her, that she said he secretly made of her and him from a hidden bedroom camera, because he told her that some of his friends wanted to have sex with her. “How would they know that if he hadn’t distributed the videos?” she asked.
She said all she wants is closure and Stallings, Uhrin's lawyer, said he is awaiting word from Doe as to who her lawyer is and he will try to solve the problem. She has not told him who is representing her, Stallings said.
She said one of Uhrin’s subsequent girlfriends told her she’d seen her (Jane Doe’s) “stuff” after the time Uhrin had told Jane Doe he’d destroyed everything.
Doe acknowledges the experience with Uhrin has made her paranoid. Fearful that other men she dates also have hidden cameras just ‘for kicks.’ “I don’t know who to trust. Who’s watching me. Or why?,” Doe said.
Another X-girlfriend, VNS we will identify only as girlfriend X-2, told VNS said she never saw any such images of Doe. However, in an email dated, April 12, 2006, she told Doe, she’d seen Doe’s “stuff” and she wanted the same closure from Uhrin that he said he was giving Doe - a letter certifying destruction of all images and data.
The woman holding a highly professional position in Virginia Beach would not deny that she’d been photographed secretly like Jane Doe. She would not deny, nor confirm, that she gave Uhrin permission to photograph her and him. “I expected to marry him,” she told VNS.
She wrote Doe in that email: “John said the two of you had a long conversation and that he thinks this mess is almost over. I sure hope so.
“I am glad he is going to give you the "closure" that you need regarding the "items in question." I have asked John for the same closure... I need and deserve the same assurance as you do on that front. I think that it's perfectly human to want to know for sure that it is all gone.”
Girlfriend X-2, went on to say, “In the mean time, John has asked me to concentrate on our relationship, and where we were last Thursday before this whole thing blew up...
“I agreed to do so, but still have serious "concerns" about the time-line that you and I talked about, as our entire relationship (beginning in February of 2003 to present) is based on the feelings that were exchanged between the two of us during those early '03 months.
“It is the root of our relationship as we know it today. If the words/feelings/emotions shared then were a farce... then our relationship today has no meaning. I am not sure where to go from here... but would ask you to please once again check to make sure we're talking about the same year -- not 2002, but 2003. Maybe you have an old calendar that would shed some light? I don't know. I don't want to dig for an answer that is going to upset me but this entire situation has been nothing but an upset since it reared its ugly head some time ago.”
Doe did have a calendar. She kept detailed daily contemporaneous records in her calendar of her relationship with Uhrin. Her calendar shows she had her first date with Uhrin on June 8, 2001 and they went to have sushi and then to Kelly’s @ Hilltop for drinks.
Doe spent the night with Uhrin June 14, 2001 for the first time, then again on the 15, then more of the same, going to Chicks, Rockefellers, a cruise on ther Carrie B, according to pages in her calendar on into late 2002.
She wrote that Uhrin left her November 10, 2001 on what she called a ‘whore trip’ to Costa Rica, based on photo footage she saw. An entry on Nov. 15, she wrote, “Confrontation with bitches.” Uhrin returned from Costa Rica and she got a notice her lease would not be renewed.
She wrote Jan. 19, 2002 that she found the pornographic pictures of where ‘John emailed his “junk” to [redacted]. Girlfriend X-2 was madly in love with Uhrin X-2 “…told me about John having threesomes with her and one of her friends…also they were doing it on his boat…”.
By June 30, 2002, Doe and Uhrin “we were falling apart…’ and resorted to some counseling but by then he was beginning to see Girlfriend X-2 openly. Both cried how much they loved each other and Doe’s records show they both had a bad emotional time.
Next week - the Doe's big photo find in Uhrin’s house and how paranoia is setting in and affecting her and some of the other former ‘girlfriends.’
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Uhrin signed the accompaning document April 19, 2006. He refused to deal with the letter she sent him via email this April certifying he never distributed or published the images of the pair engaging in sex. He’d refused to respond to the letter at his home or his business email address and is fighting to prevent its release from his city council email account under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.