Prison official: Pardons and parole board members also sought killer's transfer

ATLANTA - According to notes of a meeting kept by the prison administrator, two members of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles advocated the transfer of a convicted killer in a meeting with a corrections department official. <br> <br> The parole board members, Chairman Walter Ray and Bobby Whitworth, have denied trying to have the killer transferred on behalf of Senator Van Streat, a Democrat from Nicholls. <br> <br> Streat was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury Tuesday on charges of using his influence to have Ronald Gaither -- serving a life term plus 20 years for the 1983 murder of a man in an insurance fraud plot -- transferred twice. <br> <br> But notes of the August 10, 1999 meeting kept by Joe Ferrero, assistant commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections, say Ray and Whitworth asked that Gaither be moved if not to a county camp, then to an inside detail at Milan state prison. <br> <br> The notes&#39; contents were first reported yesterday by Atlanta television station WAGA. <br> <br> Parole board spokeswoman Kathy Browning said Ray and Whitworth were not in their offices and unavailable for comment Thursday. <br> <br> But she questioned the authenticity of Ferrero&#39;s notes and why Ray and Whitworth would have met with Ferrero instead of the corrections department&#39;s then-new commissioner, Jim Wetherington, a former parole board member. <br> <br> She said, ``The bottom line is this, if Mister Whitworth and Mister Ray had wanted to do something to benefit the inmate they could have paroled him. But they didn&#39;t. They didn&#39;t grant this inmate any favorable consideration.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Browning said the men met with Gaither&#39;s girlfriend at Streat&#39;s request and explained their recent decision to deny his parole. <br> <br> Ray&#39;s attorney, Jack Martin, did not immediately return a call at his office.