Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House

[mala]

Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House

Alabama has a Depression-era law that allows sheriffs to "keep and retain" unspent money from jail food-provision accounts. Sheriffs across the state take excess money as personal income — and, in the event of a shortfall, are personally liable for covering the gap.

The paper also found that Entrekin and his wife own several properties worth a combined $1.7 million, including a $740,000 four-bedroom house in Orange Beach, Ala., purchased in September.

To cut corners, Bartlett used charitable donations and "special deals," as CBS put it — including once splitting a $1,000 truck full of corn dogs with a sheriff of a nearby county and then feeding the inmates corn dogs twice a day for weeks.

Alabama seems to do everything it can to try to keep up its reputation as a banana republic. Between this and trying to elect an alleged child rapist I guess this is what winning looks like.

 

[USincognito]

Disgusting.

 

[Nithavela]

Disgusting.

I know, right. Corn dogs for weeks, urgh.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House




Alabama seems to do everything it can to try to keep up its reputation as a banana republic. Between this and trying to elect an alleged child rapist I guess this is what winning looks like.

Wow...so he hasn't even broken the law?

 

[Humble me Lord]

Oh, I love corn dogs.
But the kind you get at the fair. Not so much the frozen ones.

 

[mala]

Wow...so he hasn't even broken the law?

nope he hasn't.
doesn't mean that he isn't a morally repugnant individual though.

 

[USincognito]

Oh, I love corn dogs.
But the kind you get at the fair. Not so much the frozen ones.

Sigh.. I have to wait until October to try a Fletcher's fresh from the fryer.

 

[Dave-W]

Alabama has a Depression-era law that allows sheriffs to "keep and retain" unspent money from jail food-provision accounts. Sheriffs across the state take excess money as personal income — and, in the event of a shortfall, are personally liable for covering the gap.

Yeah - that law needs to change.

OR - the legislature needs to intentionally under-fund the budget and make the local sheriffs make up for the shortfall.

 

[iluvatar5150]

In case anyone mixed them up like I did, the corn dog sheriff and the beach house sheriff are two different people.

Also, the beach house guy had to take out a $150k loan when he took office?!?

 

[He is Risen 72]

So the correct title should read “Alabama Sherriff follows the letter of the law”.

Two things stand out, one; if you do not like the law, then change it. Number two, if you do not want to eat corndogs for weeks on end, don’t be a law breaking criminal thug.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Alabama seems to do everything it can to try to keep up its reputation as a banana republic. Between this and trying to elect an alleged child rapist I guess this is what winning looks like.

NINE MONTHS LATER UPDATE

Amazingly, this same sheriff did exactly the same thing with federal funds, pocketing $1.5 million in ICE money to feed immigration detainees. Since the federal republic is not yet a banana republic, this will likely lead to charges. (In happier news, he lost his reelection bid.)

Former inmates who worked in the jail’s kitchen told AL.com earlier this year that the facility cut corners however it could, serving expired and rotten food and even feeding inmates items recovered from a train wreck.

 

[dgiharris]

The Law is not always equivalent to what is morally and ethically right...

Human beings are crafty and there hasn't been a situation in which someone without integrity can't figure out how to game the system.

This is why it is very important that all agents of the State that wield power be of the utmost honor and integrity and this goes doubly so for Law Enforcement.

I'm always amazed at how we Americans are so quick to look our noses down at the corruption and unethical behavior of those in other countries... Yet when we find something amiss in our country we quickly find ways to justify it.

Linking money meant to treat prisoners to an Agent of the State's income is a serious conflict of interest and is a system begging to be abused. I can think of no way this would NOT be abused to the detriment of the citizenry

So the correct title should read “Alabama Sherriff follows the letter of the law”.

Two things stand out, one; if you do not like the law, then change it. Number two, if you do not want to eat corndogs for weeks on end, don’t be a law breaking criminal thug.

Three questions for you.
Does the State have any obligation to be moral and ethical?
Are prisoners citizens?
Should prisoners have basic human rights?

There is a reason why we don't feed prisoners dog food every day.
The way you treat the worst of your society is a clear reflection of your morals and ethics.

As a moral citizen, I demand that my government be moral as well. Morality, ethics, and your sense of right and wrong should not have an asterisks by it depending on who you are dealing with.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

So the correct title should read “Alabama Sherriff follows the letter of the law”.

Two things stand out, one; if you do not like the law, then change it. Number two, if you do not want to eat corndogs for weeks on end, don’t be a law breaking criminal thug.

Pretty sure the title of the thread used the word "legally"

Lemme check...

Yep, it said 'legally', so the OP was accurate, no issues there.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to the meat of the subject matter.

It should also be fair to point out that the violent "thugs" are mostly in state and federal lockup. County Jail is typically used for housing people serving less than one year, people serving for non-violent offenses, and people awaiting sentencing.

Here was Mala's post:

Alabama seems to do everything it can to try to keep up its reputation as a banana republic. Between this and trying to elect an alleged child rapist I guess this is what winning looks like.

This isn't inaccurate. This flawed depression-era practice has been brought to the public's attention on more than one occasion, and they keep voting for the candidates who don't want to change it. So it is on them.

This is yet another symptom of partisan hackery. The local & state republicans have a cushy relationship with the sheriff's department, and since it's done under the guise of "law & order" and "those criminals are getting what they deserve!" and the people negatively impacted are a certain type of people that, let's say, aren't too popular among rural Alabama conservatives (we all know what I'm hinting at here), they'll continue to vote for the people who uphold it.

Even when their republican governor started trying to make a push to eliminate the practice, this sheriff in question still blamed "the liberal media" for the pushback against the practice.

Seems like he knows how to play to his audience down there. All he has to do is attribute something he doesn't like to "the liberal media", and swaths of Alabama conservatives will immediately be on his side.

Between their support for this kind of thing, and as Mala said, Roy Moore...I'm convinced that you could legalize baby seal clubbing in Alabama...provided your prefaced the bill with rhetoric about how "Well, the liberal media doesn't like seal clubbing..."