High Point mayor indicted on felony charge

High Point Mayor Bernita Sims was indicted by a Guilford County Grand Jury Monday for allegedly writing a worthless $7,000 check to a family member as part of an estate settlement. 

Sims was indicted on one felony count of passing a worthless check, according to Adrienne Adams, assistant clerk with the Guilford County Clerk of Court's office. 

The charge is a felony because it involves more than $2,000. 

The case was presented to the grand jury in Greensboro Monday morning by the Special Prosecutions Unit of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office. The charge stems from an investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation into Sims’ role as executor of the estate of her sister, Virginia Sims of Maryland. 

The true bill of indictment returned against Sims states that she "unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously did draw, make, utter or issue and deliver to (Annie Ponce)" a check from a First Bank account in High Point that Sims "knew at the time ... did not have sufficient funds on deposit with the bank with which to pay the check." 

SBI agents were not expected to serve Sims with the charge until later this week because of the time necessary to get the paperwork processed and have the indictment in hand. 

The charge is a Class H felony, which is the second-lowest level of felony offense under state law. The indictment places the case in Superior Court in Guilford County. The indictment does not require Sims to leave office. She can only be forced out if convicted of a felony. It can take up to a year or more for a case to come to trial or reach a plea deal from the time a person is charged with a crime. 

Sims’ term as mayor runs through December 2014. 

She is accused of giving a check for $7,000, dated Nov. 11, 2012, to Ponce, of High Point, who is her sister and one of about 25 heirs to the estate of Virginia Sims. The mayor was under a directive from a Maryland court to give Ponce a partial distribution of her share of the estate. 

Ponce said she discovered there were insufficient funds in the bank to cover the full amount of the check shortly after Sims gave it to her, but that she delayed depositing it to try to give her sister a chance to prevent the check from bouncing. 

Ponce eventually deposited the check, which bounced, and she reported the matter to High Point police on March 13. Police referred the case to the SBI, where agents launched an investigation into the check that ended April 23. They later widened the investigation to look into possible misuse and misappropriation of funds from the estate, but Monday’s indictment does not charge Sims with anything related to this. 

Sims paid Ponce the full $7,000 in May. 

The City Council in October voted 6-3 to ask Sims to resign, citing the SBI investigation, as well as the mayor's unpaid state income taxes and a city utility-bill delinquency that went unpaid by Sims for several months as factors that have undermined public confidence in the city’s leadership and called into question the credibility of the council as a whole. 

Sims has resisted calls for her resignation, maintaining that these issues are personal matters that have nothing to do with her public duties.