By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 22, 2006; B03
The D.C. Courts' top administrator, Anne B. Wicks, did not meet her job's residency requirement for more than two years, going home to a house in Arlington County -- until a couple of weeks ago.
After an anonymous tip to the D.C. inspector general's office in March, Wicks's boss, D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Eric T. Washington, ordered her to move into the District promptly. For months after that, she remained in Virginia.
Recently, just as Legal Times was about to break the news that Wicks had been living outside the city for much of her tenure as the court's executive officer, she moved into a Northwest Washington house that she had bought in October 2004 but never occupied.
Washington said Wicks's conduct is under review and added: "Whether it will impact on her ability to lead the court is something we're evaluating now."
In an interview, Wicks said that her purchase of the house, in the Palisades neighborhood, was evidence of her intent to live in the city and that she wanted to raze the house and build another on the site.
The plan faltered, however, and her family remained in Virginia while she and her husband tried to figure out what to do, she said.
Wicks never alerted Washington, his predecessor, Annice M. Wagner, or D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Rufus G. King III that she was not meeting the residency law. Only when asked by Washington and King did she tell them that she was living outside the District.
"The fact that I haven't sustained my residency is my responsibility, and it is wrong," Wicks said.
And she was improperly, though she says unwittingly, claiming a homestead deduction on the Palisades residence -- a tax benefit available only to a homeowner occupying the home and one that she repaid this year after an audit by the city.
For a court system that has invested considerable energy into shedding a reputation for mismanagement and rebuilding relations with Congress, Wicks's residency troubles were a particularly unwanted revelation.
Wicks manages the financial and administrative operations of the two courts, which have a combined budget of $216 million and 1,161 employees. During her tenure, the court system has embarked on a major infrastructure project, renovating the main courthouse and restoring buildings around Judiciary Square, including the historic structure that will be the new home of the Court of Appeals.
Wicks is the secretary to the judicial administration committee, which sets policy for Superior Court and the Court of Appeals. She reports to Washington, who as chief judge of the District's highest court, chairs the committee.
Previously the court's deputy executive officer, Wicks took the job after her predecessor was forced out amid investigations into poor management and wasteful spending in the courts.
Paid $165,200, Wicks is the only court employee, aside from the judges, who must reside in the District -- a requirement that she said she was aware of when she applied for the job in 2000. Wicks's salary and benefits are comparable to those of the judges. Many city leaders are required to live within the District. The law covering Wicks required her to move into the city within 180 days of her appointment. It has no specific penalty.
But she didn't comply with it after she got the job in January 2001. For more than a year after her appointment, she continued to live in Virginia, only moving to the District in June 2002 after closing on a house in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of the city.
Wicks and her family wanted to live in Palisades and continued to look for a home in that neighborhood, she said. When one came up in 2003, they bid on it and put their Chevy Chase home on the market.
Their house sold in October 2003, but the house they wanted in Palisades went to someone else, Wicks said, and so they moved back to their house in Arlington, which they had never sold.
Washington, who became chief of the appeals court last year, said he did not know that Wicks was not residing in the District.
King was appointed chief judge of Superior Court in September 2000, a few months before Wicks was selected as executive officer. King said that until the letter from the inspector general and the subsequent meeting with Wicks, he did not know that she had taken more than a year to move into the District and that she had since moved back to Virginia.
Wicks said she told Washington and King in their recent meeting that a host of issues had complicated her plans to move into the District, among them the poor condition of the house she purchased and uncertainty over whether she would be able to see through the plan to build a new house.
"She offered explanations," Washington said. "We heard her and listened to her, and at the end of that conversation, we indicated that, while we understood that she had had some difficulties, she has to live in the District of Columbia and that she has to reestablish residency."