Ben Nett
Introduction
Carl Benjamin “Ben” Nett is a suspended Purcellville, Virginia, town councilmember and former vice mayor who was arrested on July 23, 2025, alongside then-town manager Kwasi Fraser, on charges of rigging a government bid and commercial fraud against the government — and who faces four additional felony counts alleging he used his police access to the Virginia Criminal Information Network to obtain identifying information about political opponents through deception. The charges came out of a Virginia State Police investigation authorized by then-Attorney General Jason Miyares and prosecuted by a special prosecutor. Nett’s trials, initially set for separate dates, were consolidated by an October 2025 court order into a single jury trial beginning December 7 .
Background Information
Nett held two positions of public trust at once in the town of roughly 7,000 in Loudoun County: he sat on the Town Council as vice mayor while also serving as a Purcellville police officer. In early 2025, the Town Council was weighing the future of its police department — voting in April 2025 to disband it before reversing course two weeks later and funding it through fiscal year 2026. Nett was terminated from the police department on April 4, 2025. Prosecutors allege that months earlier, on January 27, 2025, Nett and Fraser met consultant Mike Jones over lunch — before the town posted its request for proposals in February — to arrange a $12,000 town contract for an outside assessment of the police department, which Jones won from among 18 bidders. The charges allege Nett sent Jones a memo outlining a restructuring of the department and stating he expected to be named police chief .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged, not convicted. Nett faces felony charges that have not been tested in court; he has said he is innocent and rejected a plea offer. A civil-side removal trial in April found he violated state conflict-of-interest laws but that removal was not warranted. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Nett and Fraser were indicted by a Loudoun County special grand jury and arrested on July 23, 2025, each released the same night on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond. Both are charged with rigging a government bid and commercial fraud against the government over the Jones contract. Nett alone faces four additional felony counts alleging he used his police access to the Virginia Criminal Information Network — the state’s law-enforcement database — to obtain identifying information through deception; the counts involve searches on former Mayor Stanley Milan and on Councilmember Caleb Stought and Stought’s wife in 2024, when Milan and Stought were running against Nett’s slate in that November’s town election .
The case has already produced one adverse finding. Town residents pursued Nett’s removal from office, and an April trial ended with a jury finding that Nett violated the state’s conflict-of-interest laws but that the violation did not warrant his removal. He remains suspended from the council under a state law passed this year. On October 20, Nett said special prosecutor Eric L. Olsen had offered a deal: Olsen would drop all felony charges against Nett and Fraser if Nett pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of Virginia’s State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act, resigned from the council, and promised not to hold elected office in Loudoun for one year. Olsen had not responded to requests to confirm the offer; Nett said he rejected it .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case has fractured the small town’s politics along the lines the database searches allegedly followed. Nett has said he is innocent of the charges and has claimed they are part of a wider conspiracy against him. This week, Nett and Mayor Christopher Bertaut alleged that members of the Purcellville Police Department had themselves conducted law-enforcement database searches on the two men, saying it raised “serious questions about whether law enforcement resources have been improperly used to monitor or target elected officials and political candidates in Purcellville.” The police department has not released any statement on those allegations. Fraser — appointed town manager in January 2025 after serving as mayor, and placed on paid administrative leave by a 6-0 council vote days after the arrests — had his case separated from Nett’s in the October order, with a status hearing set to determine a new trial date. In February, both defendants’ attorneys argued there was no evidence either man received anything of value from Jones, and Fraser’s lawyer noted Jones’s assessment recommended no major changes to the department and no budget cuts .
The concrete consequences to date: Nett’s termination from the police department, his suspension from the council under the new state law, the April jury’s conflict-of-interest finding, and six pending felony counts with a December 7-10 jury trial .
Current Status
As of the October 2025 agreed order, Nett’s two pending criminal cases — the four VCIN-misuse counts and the bid-rigging and commercial-fraud charges — were joined into a single jury trial scheduled for December 7 through 10 in Loudoun County Circuit Court, after his October computer-case trial was continued off the October 26 docket. Fraser’s separate trial was continued with a status hearing pending. Nett is represented by Ryan Campbell of Alexandria; Fraser by John Boneta of Leesburg; Olsen, the Stafford County Commonwealth’s Attorney, remains special prosecutor. Nett’s rejected plea offer, if accurate, would have resolved all felony charges for a misdemeanor plea, a resignation, and a one-year office-holding ban .
Impact on Their Career/Life
Nett’s case is a study in how quickly dual roles collapse when the two halves of public service turn on each other: a councilmember-police officer now charged with using the police database against the council colleagues who ran against him, and with rigging the outside review of the department he hoped to command. His April removal trial left him holding an unusual split verdict — a judicial finding that he violated conflict-of-interest law alongside a jury’s decision to let him keep his seat — and the legislature answered the gap by passing the suspension law that now keeps him off the council pending trial. If convicted on the VCIN counts, the allegation that a police officer weaponized a law-enforcement database against election opponents carries consequences well past his own sentence: it is the fact pattern behind the state’s tightening audit rules for who may search citizen data, and for a town of Purcellville’s size, the December trial will be the largest criminal proceeding in its recent memory .