Facing possible jail time, ex-Nexus exec wants plea tossed in perjury case
STAUNTON — A former Nexus Services Inc. executive who finds himself less than two weeks away from possible jail time after botching a plea agreement with the Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office is now looking to withdraw his plea in a perjury case and allow the case to be heard by another judge.
Attorneys for Richard E. Moore, 46, of Fishersville, filed a motion Wednesday.
Perjury charge set in motion
The seemingly minor perjury case started in September 2019 in the drive-thru lane of the Starbucks on Richmond Avenue in Staunton. Moore was sitting in a car and making a purchase when approached by a private process server, who handed him paperwork through the driver's side window. "You've been served," the process server says on the video. "Enjoy yourself."
The process server, David Briggman, used to work at Nexus and has been involved in numerous legal squabbles with his former employers.
But following the brief encounter, Moore went to an Augusta County magistrate and had Briggman charged with assault in Staunton after accusing him of throwing a heavy pack of court documents, supposedly striking Moore in the neck and chest.
However, Briggman filmed the entire encounter and video showed Moore exaggerated the incident. In a letter to Moore, Staunton prosecutor Jeff Gaines said the video showed Briggman handing him the papers. Moore was then charged with perjury in Augusta County, where he filed his initial assault complaint. The assault charge against Briggman was dropped.
After the perjury case dragged along through the pandemic and seven defense attorneys hired by Moore, it seemingly wrapped up last year in September when Moore — who has several past felony bad check convictions, and is currently fighting tax fraud allegations in federal court along with another local case where he’s accused of stealing more than $400,000 — pleaded no contest to the perjury charge in a plea agreement.
The plea was taken under advisement for a year, meaning it would be dismissed if Moore stayed trouble-free. As part of the agreement, he had to complete 40 hours of litter pickup by Dec. 1 through the Augusta County Litter Control Program.
Moore, though, didn’t bother with the litter.
Around the same time, in the pending theft case Moore violated his bond after leaving the state more than two dozen times, resulting in his arrest and a brief jail stint before Christmas. He was eventually released on home electronic monitoring, where he remains.
Because he refused to pick up trash before the court-imposed deadline, on Dec. 15, Circuit Judge Shannon Sherrill found Moore guilty of perjury after it was ruled he violated the terms of the deferred disposition that could have kept him out of jail with the charge being dropped after a year.
"It would have been so easy," Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Martin said at Moore's December hearing.
Instead, Moore now faces the possibility of 10 months in jail, based on the state’s recommended sentencing guidelines in the perjury case, with two major criminal cases still on the horizon.
In July, Moore and his spouse, Nexus CEO Mike Donovan, will be tried in Augusta County on charges they stole $426,000 from the brother of convicted Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Timothy Shipe, a Nexus executive, is also charged in the case.
In December, Moore will be tried in federal court, where he’s facing 10 charges of employment tax fraud along with two charges of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. He's accused of bilking the IRS out of an estimated $1.5 million while he worked at Nexus Services Inc. The 12 charges carry a maximum of 56 years in prison. Moore has pleaded not guilty.
Motion to withdraw plea in perjury case
On Wednesday, two weeks before Moore’s April 3rd sentencing on the perjury charge, his attorneys filed a motion to withdraw his no contest plea and asked that Sherrill recuse himself so the case can be heard by another judge. The motion also argues that it remains unclear if Moore was actually already sentenced in the perjury case.
“The Court, either has already accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Mr. Moore and must enter the sentence specified in the agreement or provide Mr. Moore the opportunity to withdraw his pleas …,” said the motion, signed by attorneys Terry Kilgore and Amina Matheny-Willard.
Another motion was filed last week asking the court to bring on another defense attorney, Moore's eighth in the case.
A motions hearing is set in Augusta County Circuit Court for April 1.
Moore is a former executive at Nexus Services and he once owned a portion of the company with Donovan. He is no longer a part-owner after Donovan acquired his 39% stake in February 2022, giving Moore's spouse 90% ownership and Nexus executive Evan Ajin the other 10%, a previous court filing shows.
The company, through its subsidiary Libre by Nexus, helps people secure their release from the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A federal lawsuit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), along with the states of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and their attorney generals, is demanding $811 million from Nexus Services Inc., Libre by Nexus, Donovan, Ajin and Moore. The CFPB is seeking more than $111 million from each defendant listed in the lawsuit, plus an additional $230,996,995 for clients impacted by Nexus, with another $24,390,000 tacked on for violations of state statutes, court documents show. But the case, filed more than three years ago, has seen little movement since last summer and has seemingly stalled.
According to the Augusta County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, Moore has been convicted of fraud 11 times and charged with a total of 33 felonies in Virginia, not including his current federal charges.
Brad Zinn is the cops, courts and breaking news reporter at The News Leader. Have a news tip? Or something that needs investigating? You can email reporter Brad Zinn (he/him) at bzinn@newsleader.com. You can also follow him on X (formerly Twitter).
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Ex-Nexus exec wants plea tossed in perjury case
