The Virginia Attorney General has authorized state police to investigate a campaign ad that attacked one candidate for the Roanoke City Council through a false name provided by an incumbent candidate, Brian Wishneff.

Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom, who in May was appointed special prosecutor in the case, was required by law to get approval from the attorney general for an investigation involving an elected official.

Branscom said the recent development means a state police investigator will finally begin asking questions about an advertisement that ran nearly three months ago.

The full-page ad, published in The Roanoke Times and The Roanoke Star-Sentinel over the four days leading to the May 6 municipal elections, portrayed one of the city council candidates, Court Rosen, as an inexperienced 29-year-old with no track 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."

As it turned out, Joe Smith was a false name given to the newspaper's advertising sales representative by Wishneff, a member of the city council who ended up losing the election.

Wishneff has confirmed that he made up the name but said it was at the suggestion of the sales representative during an argument over whether the name of an individual sponsor was needed for the ad. The newspaper has denied that it encouraged Wishneff to come up with an alias.

Branscom said Monday that just because he sought approval for a state police investigation into an elected official's actions, that doesn't mean that he or anyone else has assumed wrongdoing by Wishneff.

The prosecutor said he acted "out of an abundance of caution. We wanted to make sure. Because in an election case, you're probably going to run into an elected official."

Wishneff could not be reached for comment Monday.

Although the state police investigator may well hear different accounts about the origin of the name Joe Smith, the legality involving that aspect of the case appears murky. Officials with the State Board of Elections have said they are not aware of a law that specifically forbids someone from making up a name for a political advertisement.

But there are other laws that clearly apply to the anti-Rosen advertisement, they said.

For example, the group behind the ad, Citizens for Sensible Decisions, has not registered with the Board of Elections as a political action committee, as it was required by law to do. Campaign finance laws also require any PAC that purchases an ad to file reports with the state making public its donations and expenses.

Another state law mandates that an advertisement attacking one candidate include the name of any other candidate who might benefit from the message, if the candidate who benefited worked with the sponsor of the ad. Wishneff has said he consulted with members of CSD about the ad's wording.

Winfred Noell, treasurer of CSD, said he expects that members of the organization will cooperate with the investigation. "We're law-abiding citizens. We're not the mafia," Noell said. "So sure, we'll cooperate."

Noell has said in the past that he used the group's checking account to reimburse another CSD member who paid for the advertisement. It was only after the ad ran -- and with it the mysterious Joe Smith alias -- that questions arose about the group's status as a PAC.

"We might not have followed every rule," Noell said. "We may not have known all the rules."

Noel said he's discouraged that so much scrutiny has been applied to a group of civic-minded people over possible infractions akin to "somebody going five miles per hour over the speed limit. That's how serious it is in my opinion."

"I'm disappointed that they're taking so much time and taxpayer money, as far as the special prosecutor and the attorney general is concerned, when really the bottom line is that, it appears to me, this is a witch hunt against Brian Wishneff."