An official in University Facilities Management may have taken money and other gifts from a paint company who he was responsible for hiring.
Documents from a Western Union money transfer indicate that L. T. "Spike" Weeks, a contracts manager in Facilities Management, accepted a transfer of $300 from John Sandalis, owner of Dalis Painting Inc. Facilities Management has hired Dalis Painting on a regular basis for many years, according to Director of Facilities Operations Chris Willis.
Willis also said Weeks has been a University employee for about 20 years.
Evidence of the money transfer, as well as a receipt from a $374.37 purchase from Davis TV and Appliances, made out to Weeks and paid for with a Dalis Painting check, was gathered by the prosecution in a criminal tax evasion trial brought against Sandalis in 2000. Both documents are dated in 1992.
Weeks testified as part of the trial proceedings, according to court documents.
One of the original prosecutors in Sandalis' trial, Theodore Doolittle, said he remembered "a receipt for a TV and cash payments" gathered for the trial.
The check and receipt for the TV as well as the Western Union receipt were obtained by The Cavalier Daily from Ed Kirby, owner of Rainbow Painting, another painting company that has contracted with the University.
Kirby contends his company lost a contract to paint Maury Hall last year to Dalis Painting partially as a result of the relationship between Weeks and Sandalis.
Section 6A of the Commonwealth of Virginia Purchasing Manual for Institutions of Higher Education and Their Vendors states that "All employees having official responsibility for procurement transactions must conduct business with contractors in a manner above reproach in every respect."
Chief Facilities Officer Robert P. Dillman also said procurement officials cannot have a relationship with contractors outside of work.
"There are contracting ethics," Dillman said. "Contractors should not be friends with people giving them contracts."
Dillman, as well as Jay Klingel, director of business management services in Facilities Management, both said they were unaware of any inappropriate relationship between Weeks and Sandalis.
Weeks denied that he had accepted money from Sandalis or that they were friends.
"I have not" accepted money, he said.
Both Doolittle and Kirby also said Sandalis and Weeks often would meet at Awful Arthur's seafood restaurant on Main Street in Charlottesville.
Doolittle said Sandalis often paid the bills for these dinners, which typically exceeded $100.
"Sandalis used to treat these guys to big seafood dinners," Doolittle said.
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