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Nashville businessmen Roy Dale and Mack McClung are being investigated by federal law enforcement, a source familiar with the investigation confirmed to the Banner.
The Banner reported last week that federal authorities executed a search warrant involving a Metro employee.
The source said that Dale and McClung were also targeted by search warrants. Dale is a well-known local engineer and land planner who served on the Metro Council in the 1990s. McClung is the owner of Vastland Company, a Nashville real estate outfit that has developed properties worth a reported $2.5 billion. Authorities have not disclosed the nature of the investigation.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville did not respond to an inquiry about the additional subjects.
A third-party federal court tracker logged a docket entry from January 2025 referencing the tax information of Vastland, Dale and his company, and John Honeysucker, the Metro Water Services official currently on leave following the search last week, but the proceeding is listed as sealed on the public-facing official court docket. The assistant U.S. attorney representing the federal government in the matter handled public corruption, bank fraud, tax fraud and cybercrime matters while in the Nashville office, according to an online biography. Among the cases he worked on was the successful prosecution of former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada.
"We're cooperating and providing whatever we need to provide," Dale told the Banner.
He added that investigators are "gathering data" and that "it wasn't some kind of raid or anything."
There's at least one link between Dale and Honeysucker. Records obtained by the Banner show that Honeysucker, via a trust, developed a duplex in North Nashville in 2023 and 2024. Dale's firm did the site plan work included in Davidson County records about the development.
Dale represented Honeysucker at a December 2023 Metro Planning Commission meeting, with Honeysucker sitting beside him on the front row. Planning Department staff recommended against a rezoning that would have allowed Honeysucker to build two units on the single-family property, but the commission allowed it because they said there were already similar structures nearby.
Asked about the relationship and project, Dale said, "I help anybody and everybody that comes to my office," before declining to discuss the matter further. Dale referred additional questions to attorney Jonathan Farmer.
The two sides of the duplex sold for $530,000 and $520,000, respectively, in February. Honeysucker appears to be working on a similar development in Inglewood, Davidson County real estate records indicate, though it's unclear if Dale is involved.
In a brief conversation with the Banner on Friday, Honeysucker said he was with his attorney but did not answer further questions and could not be reached again.
Honeysucker and McClung are publicly connected less directly: Both are represented in separate real estate legal matters by Nick Leonardo, a former Metro councilmember and judge. McClung could not be reached for comment over the weekend.
Honeysucker's annual Metro financial disclosures, obtained by the Banner, are incomplete. They were not filed between 2020 and 2023, according to the Metro Clerk.
The 2024 disclosure lists the North Nashville property as an investment, but it is not included on the 2025 disclosure, though it was filed prior to the sales of the duplexes.
The 2025 disclosure lists another investment property in McFerrin Park. That property is the subject of the legal dispute in which Leonardo is representing him. In divorce proceedings, the wife of one of Honeysucker’s Metro Water colleagues accuses her husband of selling the property to Honeysucker for below market value to deprive her of its value.
Vastland and Dale have worked together at least once in recent years, with Dale doing civil engineering for a Vastland residential project in Bellevue.
A source familiar with the investigation previously described Metro as a “victim” and not a subject of the alleged wrongdoing being investigated.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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