Injunction Granted To Prevent Squad From Selling Property
Rockbridge County has filed a lawsuit against Barry Arnold and his mother, Linda Arnold – the former rescue chief of the Goshen First Aid Crew and the First Aid Crew’s treasurer, respectively – seeking $350,000 in damages and a repayment of the $334,844 of public funds the county alleges the Arnolds misappropriated, with interest. The Goshen First Aid Crew is also listed as a defendant in the suit, though most of the counts in it are against the Arnolds as individuals.
The suit stemmed in part from a criminal investigation into the First Aid Crew’s finances after the crew’s annual audit in 2023 raised allegations of misuse of public funds. Barry Arnold was arrested on May 8 and charged with four felonies: Two counts of embezzlement of public funds and two counts of conspiracy to embezzle public funds. To date, no other charges have been filed against Arnold or any other individuals connected to the Goshen First Aid Crew, though the investigation is ongoing. Barry Arnold stepped down as the rescue chief of the First Aid Crew following his arrest. A preliminary hearing on the charges is scheduled for Sept. 25 in Rockbridge County General District Court.
The suit, which was filed on July 2, also requested a temporary injunction be put in place to bar the Arnolds – or any other members of the Goshen First Aid Crew – from selling any property or assets, destroying or concealing records, or transferring funds out of the organizations accounts. Additionally, the suit requested that a special receiver be assigned to oversee the First Aid Crew’s assets during the litigation of the suit. Separate motions were filed for each of those requests, which were argued in Rockbridge County Circuit Court on July 23. Judge Christopher Russell granted both motions, implementing a temporary injunction and appointing the law firm Natkin and Crickenberger as the special receiver.
The main reason for the implementation of the special receiver and the temporary injunction, the county argued, was that there had been comments made by Barry and Linda Arnold to different individuals that indicated intent to withhold, sell, or donate assets, property and records from either Rockbridge County, the town of Goshen, or both. In a sworn affidavit, Goshen Vice Mayor Steve Bickley said that, in a conversation with Barry Arnold in 2022, he had suggested that the Goshen First Aid Crew move into the Goshen firehouse and run calls in conjunction with the Goshen Fire Department. In response, Arnold told Bickley that he would “dispose of everything the crew had and the town and county will receive nothing” in the event that “anything threatened his or his family’s control of the First Aid Crew.”
In a separate affidavit, Shelia Sampson, the town’s former clerk and a current member of the Town Council, swore that, in an unrelated conversation with Linda Arnold in the summer of 2022, Arnold had said that all of the crew’s properties belonged to her personally and that said properties would continue to belong to her if the First Aid Crew were to close.
Additionally, the suit referenced a statement to Rockbridge County Fire and Rescue Chief Nathan Ramsey by Ben Arnold – Barry Arnold’s son, who took over as rescue chief following his father’s resignation in the aftermath of his arrest – on June 8 that the county “wouldn’t receive any of the crew’s assets or equipment, and that instead all of it would be donated outside of the county.”
In total, the suit alleges five counts for which it seeks judgment or damages from the court, all around the alleged misuse of public funds by Barry and Linda Arnold. The first two counts, one of actual fraud and one of constructive fraud, allege that they falsely represented the use of funds provided to the First Aid Crew by the county. The third count, conversion of funds, alleges that the funds provided by the county were to be earmarked for emergency services, but that the Arnolds exercised “wrongful dominion” over them and used them for things other than rescue operations. Count four alleges a civil conspiracy to commit the fraud and conversion counts, and the final count of unjust enrichment alleges that they used the funds specifically for personal gains.
The suit also made reference to a history of alleged misuse of assets by the Arnolds, specifically citing a letter from Ramsey to Barry Arnold in November of 2022 asking for a timeline for when Arnold and his family would be vacating the rescue squad building that they had been using as a private residence. The suit also included a letter from Rockbridge County Attorney John Dryden to the First Aid Crew in April of 2024 demanding the return of a Ford Explorer to the county after concerns had been raised over the vehicle being used as a personal vehicle despite it being “intended to aid in [the Crew’s] charitable operations.”
A recent post on the Goshen Rescue Crew’s Facebook page, which was posted the day after the decision by the Board of Supervisors to remove the Goshen First Aid Crew from the list of agencies authorized to provide medical service within the county, reads in part, “We want to let everyone know that the property, apparatus and equipment belongs to the Goshen First Aid Crew, Inc. We have no intentions of selling or donating anything. Everything will stay in the business name.”
The post also said that the crew’s board of directors has “formally retained private legal counsel and decided to take immediate civil action.”
The Goshen First Aid Crew declined to comment further except through its counsel, who did not respond by press time. Barry Arnold did not respond to a request for comment.
