In recent weeks I have been writing of the ongoing story involving dozens of Alabama sheriffs who have pocketing money from tax-funded accounts that were intended to feed inmates at local county jails throughout the state.
The story became more interesting when a witness who provided information about these crimes to the media was hunted down and arrested by police just days after making a statement. As I reported earlier this week, the witness, Matt Qualls was released from prison amid a massive public outcry that was sparked by many viral stories about the incident.
Qualls was arrested at a friend’s house while they were making cannabis butter. The police say that a neighbor called in an anonymous tip, and the timing was merely a coincidence, but police also carried out searches at multiple other addresses that were connected to Qualls, which seems excessive in a case that would otherwise be trivial.Even though there was just a small amount of cannabis found at the scene, the Etowah County Sheriff’s office wanted to charge him with trafficking, since the weight of the butter was over 2 pounds, even though most of that weight came from the butter, not the cannabis.
The case against these sheriffs began to materialize a few months ago when it was discovered that Monroe County Sheriff Thomas Tate pocketed at least $110,000 from the prison food fund.
When lawyers and media began to investigate the story, they came across Matt Qualls, a local landscaper who cut grass for another Alabama sheriff, Todd Entrekin of Etowah County. Qualls said that Entrekin paid him $10 an hour to mow his lawn using checks that were labeled “Sheriff Todd Entrekin Food Provision Account.”
At the time when Quall's statement was published, Sheriff Tate with his $110,000 was the main focus of the investigation and the lawsuits against the sheriffs, however, once Entrekin was exposed, it was quickly revealed that he was an even worse offender, spending over a million dollars of various properties on a salary that is under 100,000 each year. With the level of his corruption being so extreme, it makes sense that he would go after a witness in the way that he did.
The Southern Center for Human Rights and the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice have been investigating this issue and were forced to file a lawsuit to gain access to the financial records of prisons and police departments throughout the state. The organizations sued 49 Alabama county sheriffs over their “refusal to produce public records showing whether, and if so by how much, they have personally profited from funds allocated for feeding people in their jails,” according to a statement they released last month.
A study last year found that incarcerated people are six times more likely to contract food-borne illnesses than the rest of the population.
Additional sources: http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_pocketed_over_7.htmlTHIS WAS A STEEMIT EXCLUSIVE!!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
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