We have the basic details on the Oct. 20 arrest of former Nexus Services CEO Michael Donovan on a child sodomy charge.
Donovan, 49, who was convicted, along with another former Nexus Services executive, Richard Moore, on felony fraud charges by an Augusta County jury on Tuesday, was arrested on a charge of forcible sodomy involving a child under the age of 13, per a release from the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office.
“The charge stems from an investigation involving a juvenile male victim who investigators allege was subjected to sexual abuse over a period of several years,” per the release, which notes that Donovan is being held without bond on the charge at Middle River Regional Jail.
“The sexual abuse of a child is one of the most serious crimes we investigate,” Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith said in a statement. “Our responsibility is to protect our children, thoroughly investigate these allegations, and ensure that those responsible are held accountable. I encourage anyone who has information about this case or other incidents of sexual abuse to come forward. Your information could be critical in protecting another child from becoming a victim.”
The Sheriff’s Office encourages anyone with information regarding this most recent investigation involving the Nexus Services clan to contact the office at 540-245-5333.
Background on Nexus Services
The Augusta County Board of Supervisors announced in 2015, with great fanfare, that Nexus Services “will invest $22 million and create 250 jobs over the next three years at Mill Place Office Park in Augusta County, where it will relocate its corporate U.S. headquarters.”
Frank Root, the owner and developer of Mill Place, praised Nexus Services, in a release from the county, as “a great addition to Augusta County’s corporate community.”
ICYMI
This was, it would turn out, Augusta County inviting the fox into the henhouse.
Donovan and Moore took direct aim at county leaders not long after getting settled at the office park, targeting Smith and Commonwealth’s Attorney Tim Martin, with a full-court press that included lawsuits, protests and political dirty tricks during Smith’s run for re-election in 2019.
Spelling those out:
- The company filed a federal lawsuit against Smith in 2016 alleging that the sheriff was working with a local bail bondsman to derail its bonding program, which it later dropped.
- In 2019, an effort to link Smith to a Harrisonburg man who was convicted in a 2018 labor-trafficking case during Smith’s run for re-election was linked to a PAC formed by a Nexus Services VP.
- Nexus Services was also at the center of a series of protests at the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office in 2021 that led to the arrests of 19 people on noise ordinance and disorderly conduct charges, most of which were eventually dismissed in Augusta County General District Court.
ICYMI
- Sheriff blasts Republican opponent for ‘smear campaign’
- The strange political bedfellows in the Augusta County-Nexus Services dustup
Good work there, Augusta County, getting these chucklebums here, instead of letting them run their shenanigans somewhere else.
The shenanigans with Nexus Services, which was in the business of offering bonds to secure the release of immigrants held in detention centers, include an $811 million judgment in a joint state-federal lawsuit over how the company made its money.
The suit laid out how the company required consumers to sign confusing and misleading contracts that they presented to consumers primarily in English, even though a vast majority of Libre’s clients did not speak or read English, and that Libre misled consumers into believing that their monthly fees were paying down their bond as a debt owed to Libre and that portions will be refunded at the conclusion of their immigration proceedings.
ICYMI
- Court documents allege that Nexus Services owners drained victim’s bank account
- Arrests made in connection with investigation of Nexus Services
- Herring sues Libre by Nexus: Alleges company preys on vulnerable immigrants
- Federal judge orders Nexus Services to pay $811M in consumer fraud case
The conviction in court this week stems from the systematic theft of $426,000 from Zachary Cruz, the brother of Parkland High School mass shooter Nikolas Cruz.
Cruz received the $426,000 from a settlement following the 2017 death of his mother, and according to court documents, he opened a joint checking account with Moore, who conducted a wire transfer in the amount of $300,000 from that joint account to pay delinquent federal taxes, and used another $100,000 from the account to make luxury car and credit card payments.
As all of this has been going on, the Nexus Services property in Mill Place went into foreclosure, and was sold at auction for $3.4 million in 2023.
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Chris Graham
