The former Mayor of Dumfries, Virginia, arrested on prostitution charages:
A 72-year-old former mayor of Dumfries has been charged with running a brothel out of a sports therapy clinic in a roadside strip mall, Prince William County police said yesterday.
Melvin “Mel” Bray, who served as mayor of Dumfries from 2002 to 2006, was charged with “keeping a bawdy place,” a misdemeanor. Police arrested eight others on prostitution and other charges after a raid on the clinic Tuesday night. They also seized about $20,000 in cash.
Bray, a former Marine who also has served as a Dumfries Town Council member and a county sheriff’s deputy, vigorously denied the “bawdy place” allegation when reached by phone last night.
“I positively swear on a stack of Bibles I would not do that,” he said. “I would not stoop to that level and knowingly do something of that nature that would embarrass my family and those people who have supported me over the years.”
Bray, the town’s first African American mayor, said he is not trained as a massage therapist. He said he opened Yorkshire Sports Therapy in April after undergoing back surgery because he thought it would be beneficial to others.
“I’ve never had a massage myself,” Bray said. “I guess I should have gone into the bicycle repair business.”
I suppose so.
July 19th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Now THIS make perfect sense. As a resident for years here I have personally appealed to Bray to fix the drug/prostitution problems here, even gone to the Chief of Police without results. Let the digging begin and watch the officials fall.