Va. Adultery Case Roils Divorce Industry
Conviction Draws Attention to Little-Used Law

By John F. Kelly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2003; Page B01

When John Raymond Bushey Jr. became the first person in as long as anyone can remember to be convicted of adultery in Virginia, several things happened:

He resigned his position as attorney for the Shenandoah Valley town of Luray, Va., a job he'd held for 32 years.

People who heard of his situation scratched their heads and said, "You mean, adultery is actually a crime?"

And those who wade into the messy aftermath of alleged infidelity -- divorce lawyers and private investigators -- started pondering what impact the ruling would have on their jobs.

As for the folks in Luray, they're just curious about what the snowy-haired Bushey -- 65 years old, married for 18 years to the town clerk and the very model of a courtly Southern lawyer -- was up to.

…Because the charges were filed in Virginia's lowest court, there are no records that reveal exactly what Bushey did, with whom he did it or why prosecutors would pluck such a rarely used statute from Virginia's criminal code and apply it to him. Bushey declined to be interviewed about the case. And the prosecutor wouldn't give many details of Bushey's Oct. 23 guilty plea, the result of a plea agreement.

"There's nobody peeping in a window saying, 'Mr. Bushey did this,' " said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Glenn R. Williamson, when asked how authorities found out about the indiscretion. The complainant, he said, was the woman involved with Bushey. She has not been charged.

Although he pleaded guilty in District Court, Bushey is allowed to appeal to Circuit Court. On Halloween, that's what he did. More details might come out when the case goes before a judge Jan. 27. Until then, Williamson isn't discussing the case, beyond saying, "I think that the state has an interest in protecting the sanctity of marriage.[P6: and what is the value of that sanctity?]

Like other Class 4 misdemeanors in Virginia, adultery carries a maximum penalty of a $250 fine. Bushey paid half that, plus $36 in court costs. Adultery is also against the law in Maryland, where the penalty is a fine of $10, about the cost of a pecan bar and two large caramel macchiatos at Starbucks. The District will soon join about half of the states in the country by repealing its adultery statute.

---

Reality is, the sanctity isn't in the institution. It's in the marriage, and all the legal bluster in the world won't add sanctity to a bullshit relationship, nor take it away from a true one.

All you marriage protectors, look after your own. Too damn many of you care more about the sanctity of what someone else does than about what you do.