Former Roanoke Councilman Brian Wishneff was indicted today on charges of failing to report a campaign contribution.

The charges stem from full-page political ads that ran in The Roanoke Times and The Roanoke Star-Sentinel, taking shots at city council candidate Court Rosen in the closing days of last spring’s municipal election.

A grand jury that met this morning indicted Wishneff on two misdemeanors that each carry a potential sentence of 12 months in jail. Because the content of the ad benefited Wishneff, he is charged with not reporting its cost to the State Board of Elections as a campaign contribution.

Headlined "Who is Court Rosen?" the ad portrayed the 29-year-old as an ill-informed candidate with no record of community involvement.

At the bottom of the Roanoke Times ad was a line that read: "Paid for by Joe Smith, Citizens for Sensible Decisions."

Wishneff — who had targeted Rosen as one of his key rivals in the eight-way race for three council seats — later admitted that he made up the name Joe Smith while making arrangements to have the ad placed in The Roanoke Times.

But Wishneff insisted that a sales representative for the newspaper’s advertising department told him he could falsify a name, and that he did so only out of frustration to end a disagreement over whether a person’s name was even needed for the ad.

Officials at The Roanoke Times have denied that they encouraged Wishneff to come up with an alias.

Even if Wishneff had given a legitimate name to go with the ad, there still would have been problems with its sponsor, Citizens for Sensible Decisions.

No such group is registered as a political action committee with the State Board of Elections, as it was required by law to be before placing an ad. Campaign finance laws also require any PAC that purchases an ad to file reports with the state, making public its donations and expenses.

Special prosecutor John Alexander said today that he is sending a report to the Board of Elections regarding the role that other people played in placing the ad. The board could then decide whether to assess civil fines.

Alexander, an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Botetourt County, was designated to handle the case after Commonwealth’s Attorney Joel Branscom was appointed special prosecutor.

Following the grand jury indictments, Circuit Judge Charlie Dorsey set a $5,000 unsecured bond for Wishneff, who will be allowed to turn himself in on the two charges.

Wishneff ended up losing his bid for re-election in May. He could not immediately be reached for comment this morning.