SUN HERALD ARCHIVE: HOW AFRH CHIEF SOLD BEACHFRONT LAND, HOMES

GULFPORT -- The plan was to provide a peaceful sanctuary for military veterans and their families.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home purchased several acres of property, which included a three-acre beachfront parcel with two large homes and a small cottage. The idea was to divide the two-story homes into private rooms, creating a comfortable setting where the sons and daughters of America's aging sailors, Marines, soldiers and airmen could be with their mothers and fathers when death was near.

But that plan was scrapped when the AFRH's newly hired chief operating officer, Timothy C. Cox, decided to sell the beachfront parcel in August 2003, according to a former director of the retirement home.

The AFRH sold the beachfront property to local businessman Brent Warr, who was elected to the mayor's office two years later.

Jack Zink, a retired Navy captain and director at the AFRH in Gulfport from 1998 to 2003, told the Sun Herald he believes Cox decided to sell the property to help replenish the AFRH's shrinking trust fund.

"This thing happened very, very quickly," Zink said. "I think it was certainly sold under market value."

The AFRH sold the land and the two homes --- a 6,033-square-foot house with multiple kitchens and a 3,966-square-foot house with a swimming pool --- to Warr as a package deal for $1 million. After extensive renovations, Warr now lives in one home and his parents live in the other.

According to the AFRH's annual Performance and Accountability report in 2004, the federal government sold the beachfront property and two large, two-story houses to Warr for "approximately $1 million."

Other beachfront properties listed in Gulfport around the same time include a 4,000-square-foot home on 1.5 acres that sold for $804,000 and a 5,300-square-foot home with eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms that sold for $2.3 million.

The AFRH has campuses in Washington and Gulfport. Both homes had a combined population of 1,500, all of whom are now housed in D.C. while the Gulfport campus is rebuilt. It was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

Cox was hired to oversee both campuses in 2002 when Congress approved legislation co-sponsored by former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott abolishing the board that had governed the AFRH for more than a decade.

The law required that the AFRH be managed by civilians with backgrounds in senior care, rather than having the government oversee daily operations.

The Sun Herald attempted to reach Cox several times by phone and e-mail through the AFRH's public relations staff, seeking comment on the sale of the Gulfport property.