The man who exposed years of preferential treatment and conflicts of interest in contracting at the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority is himself being questioned for how he spent authority funds.

The authority has demanded former Executive Director Ellis Henry repay up to $30,000 for nonallowable expenses during his 10-month tenure.

Records obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act show Henry used his authority expense account to pay for air travel home to St. Louis, to buy hundreds of dollars in computer hardware that authority staff can't find and to purchase alcoholic drinks such as "freckled lemonades" and "wildberry cocktails" -- in one instance during a meal with federal auditors.

"The damage he has done, both financially and to employee morale, is terrible," authority board of commissioners member Gilbert Butler said. "What he has done from a position of special trust is truly disgraceful."

Commissioner Anita Powell resisted judging Henry, however.

"I just think we should wait until everything has been said and done," she said.

Henry said in an interview that all his expenditures were valid and business-related.

He said the allegations against him smell of racism and retaliation for his having blown the whistle on his predecessor, John Baker, and some powerful Roanoke residents for their dealings with the authority.

The authority board is racially divided, and black members are basically dismissed, Henry said. Baker left the authority with a bonus and a park named after him, he said.

"I'm African-American, John Baker is not. Why is it that right now I'm being harassed about the expenses I made ... when John Baker was not?" he asked.

The authority sent Henry two demand letters in mid-May, just weeks after he resigned and left Roanoke. One letter seeks reimbursement of $15,000 in relocation expenses because Henry did not work for the RRHA for three years, as required by his employment agreement.

The other letter seeks $8,012 in nonallowable expenses, and says that another $8,560 in questionable expenses will also be due if Henry fails to account for them.

Except for an interview with The Roanoke Times, Henry has not responded to the allegations because he was so angry, he wanted nothing to do with the authority, he said.

But that could change.

"If the harassment continues, if there's more articles in the newspaper that are basically ruining my character, or trying to, then we will file a lawsuit," Henry said.

Business or personal?

Within weeks of his arrival in Roanoke in May 2006, Henry was in the beginnings of a controversy that would color his entire time in the city.

He presented to the authority board -- and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides most of the authority's funding -- a 400-page report detailing what appeared to be preferential treatment and conflict of interest involving authority contracts with consulting firm Issues Management Group.

A subsequent HUD audit found the same problems, along with many more, and asked for nearly $2 million back, though the amount has since been reduced to $1.3 million.

Henry was hailed by many as the outsider with the nerve to call out a good-old-boy network that had run the authority for years.

But according to expense records and a detailed spreadsheet of the expenditures the authority wants repaid, Henry's own questionable spending dates to the start of his time here, with a nonallowable $45 bill for valet parking at the Hotel Roanoke.

The largest expenses, however, are connected to Henry's travel to professional conferences or seminars.

An October trip to Orlando, Fla., for example, is being questioned because receipts indicate that during a three-day seminar, Henry drove his rental car 357 miles. "Was this a personal trip or business trip?" authority human resources director Cathy Wells wrote on the spreadsheet sent to Henry.

The authority is also asking for reimbursement of the $795 fee for the seminar because hotel receipts show Henry left the session early.

Henry apparently did the same thing during a trip to Las Vegas in March.

Henry was booked in advance for a week at the Excalibur casino hotel, but receipts show he turned in his rental car about 4 a.m. on the third day of his stay and flew first to Denver and then to St. Louis. He never checked out of the hotel, so the authority was billed for the entire week. The authority wants more than $2,000 back for that trip.

Other travel-related expenses include about $2,000 for personal trips home to St. Louis that Henry charged to the authority.

While in Roanoke, Henry often conducted business over lunch or dinner, but according to the authority, he turned in dozens of receipts without appropriate documentation of who was present or what business was conducted.

Several bills show bar purchases such as frozen margaritas and amaretto on the rocks. The spreadsheet indicates Henry bought drinks during a dinner in September at Roanoke's upscale Metro restaurant with HUD officials who were in town to audit the authority.

Other questioned purchases include about $1,000 in computer hardware, a shredder, a small air compressor and automobile equipment Henry bought at Sears, and which authority staff can't find. The spreadsheet says that Henry "did not follow procurement policy."

Henry would not respond to questions about individual expenses but said, "Everything I purchased was left at that organization; every purchase I made I did the appropriate paperwork for."

'Never stopped looking'

In January, multiple authority board members confirmed, Henry pressed them for a major salary increase that he didn't get. Rather, he was given a $5,000 bonus and a promise of a 6 percent increase to his $120,000 salary on his first anniversary.

The board did, however, agree to convert Henry's relocation expenses to funds he could use toward his rent at 8 Jefferson Place, the authority-owned apartment building in downtown Roanoke where Henry lived.

Henry said board Chairman Greg Feldmann, Vice Chairman Joseph Lee and board member Powell told him early this year those relocation expenses would be forgiven.

Feldmann denies that, and an e-mail he sent to Wells, the HR director, on March 1 says the board declined that request. Neither Lee nor Powell could recall forgiving the expenses, either.

Henry says it was no secret that he didn't intend to stay in Roanoke long. His e-mails show he was seeking information about the job as head of the Richmond housing authority from one of the HUD auditors as far back as October.

Henry said once he realized the board that hired him had misled him about the condition of the agency, he "never stopped looking for another job."

His resolve to leave was bolstered, he said, when the board compelled him against his wishes to fire then-Deputy Executive Director Earl Reynolds. Reynolds had been an applicant for the executive director's job, and Roanoke's NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapters complained publicly that Reynolds was unfairly denied the position.

Lee said the board supported the decision to move Reynolds out -- it was publicly called a resignation -- but they did not pressure Henry to do it.

Wells said Henry told her that Reynolds had interviewed against him for his job and then gone to the press when he didn't get it, and "there's no way in hell" he was going to keep Reynolds around.

Some board members also denied that efforts to recoup funds from Henry are racially motivated.

"If he is attempting to explain away all of his behavior by using the race card, he's wrong," Butler said.

Lee, who is black, disagreed that the board is racially divided.

"There's some strong personalities on this board, some that I agree with, some that I don't, but I don't attribute that to race," he said.

But Powell, who also is black, said she believes some people are racially motivated to pursue the expenses from Henry.

The board is "racially, morally and economically divided," she said.

'Sad and unfortunate'

Henry left the authority in April, saying he was fed up with micromanagement from the authority board.

At the time, he was planning a reorganization and layoffs that he said were necessary because of changes in HUD funding. Board members and interim Executive Director Glenda Edwards dispute that layoffs were necessary.

But the upshot, they say, is Henry badly damaged morale at the authority before he left.

"The agency was in a constant state of upheaval and turmoil due to his pattern of favoring some employees and freezing out less favored employees," board member Butler said.

Feldmann, the board chairman, called Henry's management style "abrupt and erratic."

Powell, one of Henry's most consistent supporters, didn't see it that way. "I don't know if it was poor morale or not, because the people I talked to were upset that he was leaving," she said.

If there's a point of agreement on all sides, it's that no one is happy it ended this way, and they all want to move past these issues as quickly as they can.

"It's sad and unfortunate," said Feldmann, who will resign from the board at month's end because of increased responsibilities at his job. "I'm sorry to have to spend time and energy on these kinds of things."

To ensure it doesn't happen again, the board chairman now personally reviews all charges to the executive director's credit card, Feldmann said.

"I feel personally disappointed. We thought we had judged the character and qualifications and experience a lot better than that," said commissioner Jim Allen, who was on the board that hired Henry. "We picked clearly the best candidate out of all those that were presented to us."

Powell wonders why these issues weren't brought up while Henry was still on the job.

"There really needs to be some clear investigation that this isn't a backlash against the things he tried to do," said Lee, vice chairman of the board. Powell agreed.

Lee believes Henry's time here was ultimately beneficial for the authority.

"Because of the efforts of Ellis Henry, we are now going in the right direction," he said.

Even Henry's detractors do not question the validity of the internal investigation that led to the HUD audit.

For one thing, it was Edwards and not Henry who actually did the research and produced the report for the board and HUD, both she and Henry said. And once Henry forwarded the report, HUD's own audit confirmed the same problems.

"I think you have to salute Ellis for that role," Feldmann said. "There were clearly procurement issues that needed to be addressed."

Henry remains angry and disappointed. He said he brought new skills to the agency, mentored those who needed it and feels betrayed by staff members who know the questioned expenses are legitimate but won't defend him.

He's living in St. Louis. He said he's working but would not say where.

And although he often talked about his wife and family in St. Louis, it turns out Henry wasn't married -- not until July 7, according to video and photos of his wedding posted on myspace.com. He declined to discuss his nuptials, saying that's part of his private life.

He urged the authority to move on, as he's trying to do.

"That job ... will forever be the albatross in my life," he said, "and I will do my best to suppress every memory."