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Posted on 02/04/2008 6:46:31 AM PST by Space Wrangler
Hamilton County Sheriff Billy Long — who after his election victory in August 2006 pledged to “take the department to a higher level” — now is in federal custody on extortion, money laundering and gun charges.
Sheriff Long, 55, was escorted into U.S. District Court Saturday afternoon in jeans, a denim jacket and handcuffs. FBI agents had arrested him several hours earlier, the next step in what they said was an approximately 10-month investigation that is still continuing.
Authorities said he will remain in custody in an undisclosed location pending the outcome of a bond hearing set for 2 p.m. Monday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Humble said he plans to ask that the sheriff be detained, as he is “a danger to the community.”
He also likely will face additional charges “as a result of arrest activities” Saturday morning, said U.S. Attorney James R. “Russ” Dedrick, declining to elaborate further.
In a news conference announcing the sheriff’s arrest Saturday, FBI Special Agent Richard Lambert, who is in charge of the agency’s Knoxville division, called the case “emblematic” of the FBI’s efforts to fight public corruption.
“This is a sad day for all of us working in law enforcement in East Tennessee,” Special Agent Lambert said. “When any law enforcement officer, be it federal, state or local, puts his desire for money above his sworn duty to protect and to serve, we all suffer.”
Chattanooga Police Sgt. Craig Joel, president of the Southeast Tennessee chapter of the Police Benevolent Association, said the news sent waves of “shock and betrayal” throughout all local law enforcement agencies.
The PBA, along with the Fraternal Order of Police and International Brotherhood of Police Officers, endorsed Sheriff Long’s bid for office.
“We gave him our credibility, and he handed it back to us on a plate,” Sgt. Joel said.
Though Sheriff Long still holds office, Sgt. Joel said many hope he will step down.
“I cannot imagine a more tasteful course for him at this point than resignation,” the sergeant said.
Hamilton County Commissioner Curtis Adams on Saturday also called for the sheriff’s immediate resignation.
PBA Vice President Mark Kimsey, a sergeant with the sheriff’s department, described himself as a close personal friend and campaign contributor of Sheriff Long’s. Sgt. Kimsey said the arrest left him and his co-workers at the sheriff’s department “sick.”
“I expected it about as much as I expected a tsunami to overcome the Tennessee River,” he said.
Legal allegations
During his hearing Saturday, the sheriff bowed his head and averting his eyes from the gallery of news reporters huddled into the first two rows of the courtroom as U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Mitchell Carter outlined the charges against him.
Sheriff Long — who oversees about 400 employees and makes about $104,000 a year — is accused of shaking down ethnic Indian convenience store owners to “make good on what (he) claimed was a promised campaign contribution,” according to the criminal complaint filed against him.
He is accused of accepting 12 payments totaling $17,400 between April 3, 2007, and Dec. 14, 2007, to protect the store owners’ video poker business and other illegal activity, the complaint states.
The complaint alleges that Sheriff Long met in April with the owner of a Rossville Boulevard convenience store in a backroom, where Mr. Long is accused of telling the owner that he and other Indian store owners still owed Mr. Long $38,000 toward $50,000 promised in the sheriff’s 2006 campaign.
Mr. Long allegedly threatened “to have to shut the store down” if the payment was not made, and that “if we go after one store, we’ll go after all of them,” the complaint states.
The owner of the Chevron Food Mart, Peddapuli Rao, gave Mr. Long $300 in a 2006 campaign contribution, according to Hamilton County records. In the store at 4510 Rossville Boulevard, photographs are displayed of Mr. Rao with Mr. Long, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, who is now a U.S. senator.
Mr. Rao was unavailable at the store Saturday.
Federal officials also allege that Sheriff Long received five cash payments totaling $6,550 between Dec. 3 and Jan. 24, payoff for allowing what he thought was the laundering of $625,000 in drug trafficking proceedings. The operation, which supposedly involved shipping money to Mexico in cremation urns under cremated human remains, was actually an undercover sting conducted by the FBI.
To further the operation, Sheriff Long also allegedly provided someone he knew was a convicted felon with a Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department patrolman’s badge and a revolver.
The sheriff could receive up to 20 years in prison and have to pay as much as a $250,000 fine for both the extortion and the money laundering charges, according to Mr. Humble. The gun charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine, he said.
Sheriff Long hardly spoke during his hearing, uttering some 20 words in response to questions from the judge. He sat alone, having not yet retained an attorney.
Chief Deputy Allen Branum said he had only been made aware of any charges against Sheriff Long on Saturday morning, when he received a phone call while working at his church.
Officials surprised, shocked
Chief Branum, who will immediately take over day-to-day operations of the department, said he was “absolutely” disappointed in the allegations against the man who appointed him. He fought back tears after federal authorities announced the sheriff’s arrest at a news conference Saturday.
“This is not uncommon that these things happen, but it’s uncommon that they happen to us,” he said.
Chattanooga Police Chief Freeman Cooper said he was out of town Saturday morning when he received a call alerting him to the sheriff’s arrest.
“I had no idea whatsoever,” said Chief Cooper, who has publicly discussed his intent to work closely with Sheriff Long and his department.
Chief Cooper said the news saddened him but would not change his attitude toward working with the sheriff’s department.
“As a law enforcement agency, we’re committed to working with the county, and we will do so,” he said.
FBI officials confirmed Saturday that no one else within the department is being investigated in connection with the sheriff’s case.
Chief Branum said he met with other department officials Saturday to brief them on the situation and reassure them that the department would continue to operate in a professional manner.
“We want to maintain the credibility of this department,” he said during the news conference. “I hate for this cloud to come over this sheriff’s office. It’s hard to convince people that our credibility is intact.”
Former Sheriff John Cupp was a 12-year incumbent when Sheriff Long — who was backed by the Police Benevolent Association, Fraternal Order of Police and International Brotherhood of Police Officers — beat him in the last election. Mr. Cupp said he, too, worried about the department’s reputation.
“There have been problems down through the years,” he said, referring to a federal probe a decade ago that uncovered corruption in the Hamilton County Jail and ultimately led to 29 prison sentences.
“It’s unusual for anybody to get in trouble that fast,” he said, citing Sheriff Long’s 16-month tenure.
Sheriff Long had worked for the department for 31 years before retiring to make his bid for sheriff. He had been a U.S. Army Airborne trooper for three years and spent 17 years with the Tennessee Army National Guard.
Mr. Cupp said he hopes the public remembers that “the sheriff’s department has some very outstanding people there. And they don’t need to be besmirched by something that somebody else is accused of doing.”
Hamilton County Assistant District Attorney Boyd Patterson said whenever law enforcement officials are alleged to have committed crimes, it “gives a black eye to thousands of legitimate hard working officers and prosecutors.”
Defense attorney and former assistant district attorney Parke Masterson said it’s ironic that Sheriff Long “ran on cleaning up a corrupt department.”
“Police power is the greatest power we, as citizens, bestow. To give them that power and have it abused is the biggest insult possible to a free society,” Mr. Masterson said.
County Mayor Claude Ramsey said local elected officials still were in shock hours after hearing the news.
“It’s a sad day for Hamilton County,” he said.
This type of corruption doesn’t start overnight. I’ll bet if you ask the general public in Hamilton County they would tell you that his corruption has been known for years.
One does not practice corruption alone.............
Sheriff Billy...would you like a slurpee with that?
Note to (ex)sheriff.........don’t drop the soap......
Maybe, maybe not. It does not appear at this time that there were any other LE involved. The FBI had him up for over 9 mos. It seems that anyone else’s involvement would have come to light in that time. The scuttlebut is that a judge could be involved as well, but it’s nothing but rumor at this point.
I live just over the line in Georgia and noticed it took the very left-leaning Times Free Press a bit to note Mr. Long is a Democrat. 13 paragraphs, last line of that paragraph, in my morning paper.
Didn’t take them near that long to identify all those dastardly Republican County officials calling for his resignation.
How many grown men are still called “Billy”, btw?
Ahhh- the choice is his?
Pretty much. The county commission can begin ouster proceedings, but it will take time.
About a decade or so ago, the sheriff of Nassau County Florida, between Jacksonville and the Georgia state line, was arrested as was his top deputy. Their crime was selling a distribution of drugs. They had a really good source: other LE agencies all over Florida. It seems they had the only large incinerator approved for the disposal of seized contraband in the vicinity. They would get the weed and other drugs from the other jurisdictions to be destroyed, but they would actually burn only a small portion of the stuff. The rest was sold back out on the streets. Suspicions were raised when the two were conspicuously living beyond their means..........
I read into this article 2 paragraphs. The political party of the sheriff had not been identified, so I knew he was not a republican. I read and reread the article and cannot see where his political affiliation is ever identified.
I think the posted article was from the Sunday paper.
The party affiliation was in today’s edition and was 13 paragraphs down, last sentence.
The paper also had an editorial that went on about how he was innocent until proven guilty, blah, blah, blah.
A Democrat on the commission spewed the same blather. This guy is toast, or at least I think so. Should be noted I thought the same thing about Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana. He’s still drawing a salary and is still in office.
He’s caught. The Feds have him on video and audio tape discussing his crimes in detail. I’m a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty, but that’s in the eyes of a court. I have no such constraints, and he’s toast!
He has a bond hearing in about 30 minutes, at 2 pm EST. Federal prosecutors have already been on record opposing his release. That tells more than anything else at this point.
***********UPDATE******************
New Charge Brought Against Sheriff Billy Long -
Agents Say He Was Helping With “Cocaine Deal” At Time Of Arrest
A fourth charge has been brought against Hamilton County Sheriff Billy Long, prosecutors said Monday.
The sheriff was out helping with what he believed was a sale of 10 kilograms of cocaine on Saturday morning when he was arrested, prosecutor Gary Humble said.
After he was arrested, Sheriff Long told federal agents “he had made bad choices for which he was sorry,” the new complaint says.
The prosecutor said Sheriff Long on Saturday went to the business of a man described as a cooperating witness (CW).
He said 10 kilograms of cocaine were loaded into the trunk of the CW’s vehicle, and the sheriff was told it was being dropped off at another location.
Sheriff Long followed the CW to the “drop” and then gave him a ride back to the business.
Then he took a split of $48,000 from the alleged drug deal, prosecutor Humble said.
He said the CW told the sheriff that he had to dispose of a gun the sheriff had given him earlier. He said Sheriff Long told him he had “done the right thing” and said he would get him another gun.
Sheriff Long is also charged with providing a gun to a felon, with bribery and with money laundering.
He made a brief court appearance on Monday afternoon before Magistrate Bill Carter and was again handcuffed and wearing the same jeans jacket as he did Saturday afternoon.
A detention hearing and preliminary hearing were delayed to allow attorney Jerry Summers to talk with Sheriff Long and to study the new charges.
It will be Friday at 2 p.m.
Those in the crowded courtroom included County Commission Chairman Bill Hullander and County Attorney Rheubin Taylor. Chairman Hullander said he has gotten no word that Sheriff Long has resigned from his post.
The new charge carries a charge of 10 years to life.
Sheriff Long was held in isolation in a facility in Blount County over the weekend, but he is now being held in the Bradley County Jail.
Meanwhile, Rep. Vince Dean said he is considering a race for sheriff at the expected election in August.
John Bailes, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, issued this statement, “The Hamilton County Democratic Party believes that injecting party politics into the judicial proceedings concerning Sheriff Long is petty and unproductive. Democrats have full confidence that our federal court system will be judicious and exact in dealing with this case.
“Moving forward, our party will stay focused on the presidential primary this week and upcoming elections later this year.”
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This guy is not some backwater Sheriff....Hamilton Co is metropolitan in nature, and it is almost beyond the imagination that anyone this dirty could be elected to the position he made it to.
Of course his lawyer is playing up the fact that Long had recently attended a John Edwards campaign event, so the bust MUST have been timed for political purposes.
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