In a memo released to the Middleburg Eccentric at 1:09 PM on Friday, March 11, Middleburg Town Administrator Martha Semmes announced the early retirement of the Town's Police Chief, Steven L. Webber, effective in late June:

Middleburg Chief of Police Steven Webber has announced his retirement effective June 28, 2011. Upon hearing this news, the Middleburg Town Council expressed their deep appreciation for his many years of dedicated service to the Town. They noted the outstanding job he has done since starting with the Town in March of 1996. He was appointed by the Council as Chief in November of 2000. The Council has directed the Town Administrator to start recruiting for a replacement in the coming weeks.

Webber's decision, announced at a Thursday, March 10, closed session of Council effectively brings to an end a Middleburg career that began in the midst of controversy in the late 1990s, and ends amidst a flurry of unanswered questions about the Chief's professional judgment and personal conduct before, during, and after the arrest and perp-walk of Middleburg Eccentric Editor-in-Chief, Dee Dee Hubbard, on November 30, 2010.

A Part-time Hire

On May 9, 1996, Middleburg Town Council Member Betty Kirk, the mother of the current Vice Mayor, announced that the Town had hired "a new part-time police officer." His name was Steve Webber.

Carol Bowersock was in her last weeks as Mayor, soon to be replaced by one of her Town Council members, C. L. ("Tim") Dimos.

Mark Tate and Trowbridge Littleton served on the Town's "Public Safety" Committee and were, at the time, still responsible for primary oversight of Middleburg's popular Police Chief David L. Simpson and his force of two full-time officers.

By all accounts, few if any concerns were raised by the decision to hire Webber. He was around 36 years old, a Loudoun County High classmate of a number of local citizens, and a former Marine Corps Military Policeman.

After his discharge from the Corps in 1982, he had joined the Leesburg Police Force, where he served for 12 years. In September 1994, he was a Sergeant.

A number of current and former members of the Middleburg Town Council now remember there were, at the time, unsubstantiated rumors "floating around" about the reasons for Webber's departure from the Leesburg Department.

Vetting, however, was informal. After receiving assurances from "people who should know," including a "reliable and prominent source on the Leesburg Town Council," one former Council member told the Eccentric, the rumors were simply dismissed. I was told, he said, that the rumors "really didn't amount to anything."

Personnel records then and now are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and thus closed to public scrutiny.

Chief Simpson needed help covering the streets of Middleburg. Council approved the new hire.

Steve Webber thus became a part-time patrolman in Middleburg with little or no serious scrutiny.

Cover-up, Termination and Appeal

A deeper investigation of Webber's record however, now indicates he left the Leesburg force shortly after appealing a decision to terminate him for cause.

In the spring of 1994, according to recently discovered Loudoun County Circuit Court documents, a police officer under Webber's command "... was investigated by the Department for raping and assaulting a young woman and ultimately was dismissed from the Leesburg Police Department."

The same documents reveal that the officer's superior, Steve Webber, was "... investigated by the Department for failing to report the attack on the victim when it was reported to him and for covering it up."

"After the charges against him were sustained," the Court filings continue, "he too was dismissed from the Town Police Department."

Both officers appealed their terminations.

Both agreed to be represented by Michael T. Leibig, a UVA-trained lawyer who, until his untimely death in 2004, was the General Counsel of the Virginia Coalition of Police and Deputy Sheriffs (VCOPS).

Both agreed that their appeal would be heard by the same three-person panel, drawn from the twelve-person Loudoun County Board of Grievance Commissioners appointed by the Board of Supervisors.

On or about October 27, 1994, records indicate, the grievance panel heard and upheld the decision to terminate the officer investigated for rape and assault.

Webber retained a new lawyer, George-Mason-trained Peter D. Greenspun, perhaps best known for his defense of John Allen Muhammad, the so-called "Washington DC Sniper" and consistently ranked as one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the DC area.

Webber's hearing, initially set for November 22, 1994, was postponed for six months, until April 26, 1995. On April 25, a day before the hearing was scheduled to begin, Webber's attorney had "hand delivered" a request to the Civil Division of the Loudoun County Circuit Court to compel the Town of Leesburg and the Leesburg Police Department to reconstitute the panel that would hear Webber's appeal.

Having the same grievance panel review Webber's appeal after it had already upheld the termination of his subordinate would be unfair, it was argued. The panel would have heard things that Webber had not heard; as a result might well be prejudiced against Webber; and Webber, in any case, would have no way of knowing what the panel knew or had heard during the earlier proceedings.

Judge Thomas D. Horne heard Webber's appeal for a new panel.

Jack L. Gould, Counsel for the Town of Leesburg and the Leesburg Police Department, argued that: Webber had already agreed to have his appeal heard before the previously selected panel; that nothing really pertinent to the charges against Webber had been raised in the earlier hearing; that witnesses had already been assembled for the hearing (with one coming from as far away as California) and that, in any case, Webber was unlikely to prevail.

Webber's subordinate had been investigated "for raping and assaulting a young woman," Gould noted. Webber, on the other hand, was investigated by the Department and dismissed, "for failing to report the attack on the victim and for covering it up."

On July 19, 1995, Judge Horne denied Webber's request for an injunction against Leesburg and the Leesburg Police Force.

Based on evidence before the Court, he wrote, "... that there was a waiver by the complainant of any objections to the constitution of the Board of Grievance Commissioners, or the hearing panel, and there is little likelihood of complainant's succeeding on the merits, that the balance of equities is in favor of the town."

Horne concluded with an admonition that the panel overhearing the Webber appeal should be careful in its approach. "Each member of the panel shall be asked prior to the beginning of the administrative appeal hearing," he wrote, "whether he or she is able to lay aside any preconceived opinion and render a decision... solely on the evidence presented."

Council Members serving at the time insist that the Middleburg Town Council knew none of this when Webber was hired.

None of it, apparently, became known as he moved up the chain of command in the tiny Middleburg force.

Indeed, because of the special protection afforded "personnel matters" it would appear that none of these facts would have become public at all had Webber not taken his appeal for a new panel to Judge Horne's court.

Once he became a part-time patrolman in Middleburg, Webber's record in Leesburg was apparently never again questioned, and never investigated by Council or any of his superiors.

The readily available documentation of his termination and appeal was, by all accounts, never circulated, up to and including the night he announced his retirement in March 2011.