MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A sitting Tennessee sheriff pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges that he illegally profited from the work of inmates under his watch and housed dozens of them in a home outside the jail without permission.
Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas entered the plea to 18 charges during a hearing in court in Trenton, his attorney, William Massey, said in a text message. Gibson’s next hearing in the county where he remains sheriff is scheduled for Oct. 22, Massey said.
Thomas was charged in May in Gibson and Davidson counties on 22 charges including official misconduct, theft, forgery and computer crimes involving inmates in his custody.
Thomas will have a hearing on the four Davidson County charges at a later date in Nashville. Massey has said Thomas deserves the presumption of innocence, and he looks forward to defending himself in court.
Investigators said Thomas was an investor in three for-profit companies that provided staffing assistance to local businesses, housed current and former inmates in a transitional home and provided transportation for inmates on release from work and former inmates traveling to and from work.
Thomas failed to disclose his ownership interest in the companies, known as Alliance Group, in his annual filings with the Tennessee Ethics Commission, Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower said June 13.
Thomas spent more than $1.4 million in payroll and inmate deductions on the Alliance Group, investigators said. At least 170 inmates in Thomas’ custody were employed by Alliance’s employment agency during the investigation, investigators said.
Alliance Transportation was paid $18 a day to shuttle inmates to and from work, while 82 inmates, without proper approval, were allowed to live in the Orchard House transitional home instead of the Gibson County Jail, investigators said, noting that they had to pay $40 a day. at the house,
He received more than $181,000 in compensation, wage benefits and legal representation services from Alliance — money that illegally came from inmate labor, the comptroller’s office said.
Investigators said Thomas also misled the Tennessee Department of Correction by showing the county jail as the inmates’ location in the state’s offender management system rather than as a transitional home, leading to the county receiving more than $500,000 in state reimbursements int.
Thomas then demanded that the county give that money to Orchard House without the corrections department’s knowledge or consent, officials said
“Orchard House was not affiliated with the jail nor staffed by jail staff, and no contract existed between the county and Orchard House,” the comptroller’s office said.
The The Associated Press released a series of stories in May related to the US prison labor.
Rural Gibson County is located northwest of Memphis. The indictment against Thomas comes more than seven years after another Gibson County sheriff, Chuck Arnold, pleaded guilty to charges including fraud, theft, forgery and official misconduct in connection with the diversion of drugs and money from a jail drug fund.
Arnold was sentenced to probation.