[PAA-Discuss] Sheriff forces inmates to pay "rent" or sign promissary notes as conditn of release.

[A. Artemis]

One cannot make this stuff up.
   
  http://www.ajc.com/metro/%63ontent/metro/stories/2007/11/15/clinchsheriff_1116.html 

A South Georgia sheriff has been indicted by a federal grand jury for
forcing about 475 inmates to pay around $30,000 for room and
board to stay in Clinch County Jail.

Clinch County Sheriff Winston C. Peterson 62, is also facing federal
charges of obstruction of justice, perjury for lying to the grand
jury, and forcing an inmate to perform labor at a private business
owned by his wife.

According to the indictment, Peterson collected room and board from
prisoners who were both awaiting trial, and prisoners who had been
convicted and released and still owed money.

Peterson, sheriff in Clinch County since 1988, forced prisoners to
sign promissory notes if they were unable to pay their room and board
before their release on bond.

The promissory notes stated that the inmate could be put back in jail
for failure to pay room and board. According to the indictment,
Peterson collected the funds and remitted them to the Clinch County
Commission.

Last year Clinch County lost a 2004 federal civil suit and was forced
to repay $27,000 to inmates who, between 2000 and 2004, were charged
$18 a day to stay in the jail. The indictment brings criminal charges
of extortion against Peterson for the same violation.

In the civil lawsuit, Clinch County officials argued that the fees
charged to prisoners was the county's way to punish criminals instead
of taxpayers. One plaintiff in that suit was charged $4,608 for eight
months he spent in jail.

Peterson is the second sheriff in the five-county south Georgia
Alapaha Judicial Circuit to be indicted by a federal grand jury this year.

In August, Berrien County Sheriff Gerald Brogdon pleaded guilty to
federal charges of the illegal sale of firearms and resigned from office.

The far-reaching federal investigation of the rural district, composed
of Atkinson, Berrien, Clinch, Cook, and Lanier counties, has also
resulted in the indictment this summer of Clinch County magistrate
judge Linda C. Peterson, and Clinch County court clerk Daniel Leccese
Sr.Federal officials have decline to comment on their investigation
revealed in court papers. Peterson did not return a call seeking
comment, nor did his Savannah attorney, Brent J. Savage._.___ 
   

       
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