Late Congressman Kept $10K In Hill Office In Case Terrorists Hit The ‘Grid’

When Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) passed away in October 2013, the process to account for his Capitol Hill belongings quickly dissolved into bickering and chaos, according to an exhaustive new account from CQ Roll Call.

Beverly Young, the congressman’s widow, claims that after her husband passed, some of his possessions and memorabilia quickly disappeared from his office in the Capitol, including $10,000 in cash.

“He kept $10,000 in his desk because he believed the terrorists were going to attack the grid … and no one would be able to get to the banks,” she told CQ Roll Call in an interview published Tuesday.

According to Young, her husband gave her instructions in a handwritten note and left the cash — all $100 and $2 bills — in an envelop in his desk drawer. The late congressman told his wife that the key to his desk was in his nightstand, but that was not the case.

“I never got that key. That key was in his pants the day he went to the hospital,” she said.

She told CQ Roll Call that the congressman’s chief of staff, Harry Glenn, must have had the key.

“Harry had to have the key because he opened up Bill’s desk and he sent me pictures and he says, ‘Here’s pictures of everything in the desk drawers. I don’t want to be accused of taking anything,'” Young said.

Glenn told CQ Roll Call that he did not find an envelop with cash in the congressman’s desk.

A House Administration Committee aide told CQ Roll Call that the House Clerk designates an individual in charge of a member’s belongings after his death. However, Glenn said that the process was chaotic and that the House Clerk only oversaw the inventory of hardware like computers.

According to Young, other memorabilia went missing from the congressman’s Hill office.

Although it has now made its way back to the Young family, a large brass shell casing given to the congressman by the U.S. Special Forces temporarily disappeared. The congressman’s wife contacted the Capitol Police to retrieve the shell casing.

It also seems the congressman and Glenn had made unofficial arrangements with St. Petersburg College for an archive with Young’s personal memorabilia.

According to James Oliver, provost of the Seminole Campus of SPC, the congressman’s office had been slowly sending items to the campus since 2007. Yet Young’s replacement, Rep. David Jolly (R-FL), borrowed a few items from the college’s collection for a conference room in honor of the late congressman.

Jolly Spokesman Preston Rudie told CQ Roll Call that the office returned the items to the college as soon as Mrs. Young demanded them back.