Wasted Funds, Destroyed Property: How Sheriffs Undermined Their Successors After Losing Reelection

ProPublica – by Conner Sheets

Shortly after Phil Sims became the sheriff of Marshall County, Alabama, at 12 a.m. on Jan. 14, he found a cardboard box in a storage closet containing five government-issued smartphones, each with multiple holes drilled clear through them.

It was the first time Sims had been allowed to enter the sheriff’s office, a red-brick building overlooking Lake Guntersville, a foggy bass-fishing mecca, since he defeated longtime Sheriff J. Scott Walls in the June primary election. 

It didn’t take long for Sims to learn that the destroyed iPhones and Androids had belonged to his predecessor and his top brass. Sims also discovered that the hard drives had been removed from the computers in his and his chief deputy’s offices, and reams of records were nowhere to be found.

The records Walls did leave behind revealed that in the months following his electoral loss, he was wired tens of thousands of dollars from the sheriff’s office’s general fund, and more than $30,000 was missing from its commissary fund. The records, which were reviewed by AL.com and ProPublica, show that the sheriff’s office spent tens of thousands of public dollars on expenditures that Sims described as unnecessary and excessive, including over 20,000 rolls of toilet paper, hundreds of boxes of garbage bags and 10 massive drums of dishwashing liquid.

Read the rest here: https://www.propublica.org/article/alabama-sheriffs-undermine-successors-after-losing-reelection

4 thoughts on “Wasted Funds, Destroyed Property: How Sheriffs Undermined Their Successors After Losing Reelection

  1. How Nine Sheriffs Who Lost Reelection Made Life Harder for Their Successors:

    Some of the new sheriffs, who took office on Jan. 14, accused their predecessors of pocketing sheriff’s office funds or purchasing thousands of dollars of items the new sheriffs described as wasteful or unnecessary. Other outgoing sheriffs took steps that their successors described as petty, like refusing to communicate for months and purchasing promotional items with their name printed on them on their way out the door. The now-former sheriffs generally disputed these accusations.

    Below is a breakdown of some of the allegations made by each new sheriff in interviews with AL.com and ProPublica as part of a yearlong investigation into Alabama sheriffs:

    READ MORE:
    https://www.propublica.org/article/alabama-sheriffs-accusations-impeding-successors

  2. they like to call their job a “professional career” like on the level of a Dr. or people who have higher skills

    does this sound professional to you ?
    sounds like a bunch of professional thieves and scam artists if you ask me ..and an embarrassment to their fellow men and women
    but i guess when you have an entire government filled with jackoffs like this , why should they rise above the cream , right?

  3. IF WE TRULY HAD “LAW ENFORCEMENT”, THERE WOULD BE NO FEDERAL RESERVE.
    AND THE CURRENT DEFINITION OF “CORPORATION” WOULD BE ILLEGAL UNDER R I C O.
    AND THE UCC WOULD BECOME A SIDELINE OF SUGGESTIONS, WITH MULTIPLE WARNINGS ISSUE PRIOR TO THE COMPLAINT AND SWORN AFFIDAVITS TO CRIME.
    SO MUCH FOR THE DAMN “BAIT CAR ” PROGRAM…….WHICH IS ENTRAPMENT AND UNLAWFUL.

  4. “spent tens of thousands of public dollars on expenditures that Sims described as unnecessary and excessive, including over 20,000 rolls of toilet paper,…”

    Well, that one may be close to legitimate, anyway.

    Pigs ARE full of sh#t, after all.

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