If the state were receiving money from the Federal government to support jails and prisons, for example, and that money had rules attached that were violated by the Alabama state law that state tax money can be purloined for personal use by sheriffs then somebody might be in trouble. Even though Alabama is cool with it.
Likewise, if these are totally state funds, and no department of Justice rules apply, but he is taking the surplus food budget as personal income, he better be declaring it on his Federal income taxes or he might be in big trouble with the IRS.
So two conceivable ways that what appears totally legit under state law, can still get you in trouble with the Feds (all this aside from whether prison conditions violate federal law).
Note to the Governor of Alabama and to members of Alabama’s legislature:
This and many similar cases are exactly the reason that millions of American citizens stay out of Alabama and refuse to spend either personal or business funds in your state.
If so, I certainly missed it at the time. I appreciate TPM running the story now. More generally, I think there is merit in rerunning stories even if they’re not “new”, if they are matters of public interest that didn’t get much attention the first time around. A one and done approach only enables the (p)residents media strategy
That’s why I wrote in my first post in this thread:
Although if you google this stuff (or go to al.com) you’ll find that there are a whole bunch of cases of Alabama sheriffs doing this, some of whom have been hauled before courts and a few have gotten some convictions.
Apparently it’s stayed under the radar with the feds, but looks like this guy has seen to it that it’ll get investigated. And hopefully stopped.
yes, we agree on your point, but I have no information about whether these are (co-mingled) federal funds nor whether there are federal regulations prohibiting this practice.
If not, he could still be in jeopardy if he is cheating on his federal taxes. So the this is legal in Alabama may be irrelevant
This law needs to go.Are Alabama taxpayers okay with these Sheriffs just using their money for personal perks of the job? They should have to return it to the state treasury instead.
Not dissimilar to the apparently somehow legal practices of local police keeping the proceeds from money and things they confiscate. Some pretty perverse incentives going on there as well.
Don’t let this story die. It makes my blood boil when I read about the behavior of people like the Sheriff. I think about “white collar” crime the likes of which the President and his “lawyer” have quite likely engaged in and how Mr Qualls is being treated. The Sheriff is a bad actor much worse than any one low level drug user. Keep posting updates on this story.
Are there any redeeming values or anything virtuous about the state of Alabama? I guess you can say Alabama football, but, the take advantage of their black football players.
There’s another good article at www.al.com which was just put out in the last day or two that covers a bunch of stuff about about what fed laws may prohibit and why — sorry, I am on the move now and can’t copy the address with this device, but you should be able to find it easily.
I suspect it may answer some of your questions.
I sure hope this guy gets nailed against the wall for his greed. He’s an evil, evil man.
Etowah County also gave us Roy Moore, so go figure. However, my guess is that this goes on in every county to a greater or lesser extent. I live here, so take it from me, it’s far worse than this one joker. Take for example the Sheriff of Morgan County. She’s REALLY go it going on. Check out the work of Josh Moon on Alabama Political Reporter. He and John Aldridge (of recent Pulitzer fame) have written extensively about this and other abuses of power. The state is rotten with corruption. On the bright side, yes, we do have a “liberal media”.
Can we get this guy’s awful smug face off of the TPM home page? He’s been polluting the page since this morning. It’s making me not want to visit the site throughout the day like I usually do.
It may begin as grift but quickly descends to sadism. And to justify sadism you have to denigrate the humanity of your victims.
This isn’t something that is just about one person’s greed - it is only a corrupted culture that can institute that kind of law, which looks to be for all intents and purposes a jim crow-era work-around designed for systemic abuse of prisoners.
