Lee Rood Article in Des Moines Register

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LEE ROOD




Iowa’s former film chief has a message for state employees: Beware. You, too, could be convicted of misconduct in office.

Interviewed for the first time since his conviction in October, Tom Wheeler told The Des Moines Register last week that he believes the verdict in his high-profile case means any state employee could wind up being charged criminally “through no fault of their own.”

Wheeler said he had no training, no employee handbook and no legal coaching on the ramifications of screwing up when he was drafted to run Iowa’s film program.

“Nobody was clear about the minimum or maximum I was supposed to do,” Wheeler said Wednesday from the downtown office of his Des Moines lawyer, Angela Campbell. “The precedent of this law leaves the door open for the state to use the law well beyond what was expected.”

In September, Polk County jurors found Wheeler guilty of submitting falsified documents involving projects from filmmaker Wendy Weiner Runge. He received a deferred judgment and probation, meaning his record will be wiped clean if he stays out of trouble for the next two years.

Still, Wheeler said he has spent about $250,000 in legal fees, court costs and the like, and “it nearly destroyed my life.”

Now working at a hardware store in Indianola, Wheeler said he will never be able to pay his debts on his current salary. He said he will have to look for work out of state if he ever wants to get ahead.

But he also said he still believes film incentives were a great thing for Iowans, and he thinks they should be revived with better safeguards in place, such as formal audits before credits are awarded.

Wheeler was found not guilty on eight counts of fraud, conspiracy and felonious misconduct. Judge Douglas Staskal said at sentencing that Wheeler deserved punishment for shirking his responsibilities to Iowa taxpayers, but he acknowledged that jurors had “essentially exonerated Mr. Wheeler of any evil criminal intent” when they acquitted him of the other charges.

Wheeler said in the interview that he did not knowingly submit falsified records.

Jeff Thompson, a deputy attorney general involved in Wheeler’s prosecution, had no comment.

Wheeler’s interview came in the same week that filmmaker Bruce Elgin was ordered to pay $4.38 million in restitution to the state, but two others were awarded more than $5 million in taxpayer money in connection with the film program’s collapse.

Elgin, 42, of Washington, Ia., dodged a prison sentence when he was given a deferred judgment and two years’ probation for records tampering. Prosecutors alleged Elgin claimed $7.8 million in illegal expenses to gain state tax credits.

Meanwhile, the makers of big-budget movies “The Experiment” and “The Crazies” reached the largest settlements of all filmmakers whose productions were entitled to payments, but who were unable to collect after the state’s incentive program was suspended in 2009.

Magnet Media of Beverly Hills, Calif., producer of “The Experiment,” is to receive $4.1 million. Jekyll Productions, also of Beverly Hills, will get almost $1.4 million in cash and $2 million in tax credits for “The Crazies,” according to Deputy Attorney General Jeff Thompson.

The film program was run by Iowa’s Department of Economic Development, which employed Wheeler. A state audit released in 2010 found 80 percent of the tax credits awarded before the program collapsed — $26 million of $32 million — were issued improperly.