Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Dewey's Doings 4/3

Earlier today, Charles "Dewey" Walling was sentenced to six months in Saratoga County Jail for stealing $27,111 from the St. Clement's Horse Show, a fundraiser for the Catholic church's religious school. He's paid back the money he swindled via cooking the books at the show's souvenir stand and will still face five years of probation upon his release.

The Rev. Paul Borowski gave a victim impact statement prior to the sentencing. He said he would be willing to forgive Walling if he asked for forgiveness, but that wasn't the same thing as justice. He asked the judge to enforce the jail sentence that was part of the plea package.

The most interesting thing about Borowski's statement though, was this excerpt:
"While I and all those involved with the case were conscious of not speaking publicly about this case and trying to keep a low profile about the subsequent investigation, it seemed that Mr. Walling had shown no remorse at the time about his crime. A few days prior to his being arrested on these charges, he willingly put himself front and center of the opening scenes of the highly-publicized Saratoga Springs Chamber of Commerce (sic) promotional video, hurting many people who worked so hard to make that production a success."
 I had to think about that one for a second. Then it hit me.


Sure enough, there's Charles "Dewey" Walling (left) as Sam the Bugler in last summer's "Lip Dub" production, which has more than 57,000 views on YouTube at the time of this posting.

Let's take a look at the timeline:

The horse show was in May. An internal investigation into the souvenier stand's finances began shortly thereafter. When organizers learned Walling was creating false invoices, Borowski said he tried to schedule a meeting with Walling. When he refused, the results of the internal investigation were forwarded to the Saratoga Springs Police Department. He said Walling knew that would happen.

That was in mid-July. The Lip Dub was filmed at the beginning of September, so at this point he probably realizes knows that things aren't looking good for him. You wouldn't know it from watching the video, though. Walling was arraigned on the charges Sept. 13. The Lip Dub premiered Sept. 27.

I'm not sure what the Chamber of Commerce can do in that situation. It's not like they were going to digitally remaster the footage to remove Walling from the video and it would have been even more ridiculous to re-shoot the whole thing. Borowski has a point: it put the chamber in a tough spot.

One thing's for sure, though. Walling looks way happier in that video than he does in his mug shot.


Until next time,
MC

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