Word: dekalb
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...Sidney Dorsey, the sheriff whom Derwin Brown defeated in a bitter fight last year. (Cuffy was also employed by Dorsey's private security firm.) Once, during the campaign, Brown told aides he had seen Cuffy lurking in a dark SUV, shadowing him as he discussed corruption in the DeKalb jail with a county official. Cuffy was one of 38 employees that the reform-minded Brown planned to fire once he took office. Cuffy had doubled his take-home pay to $90,000 by filing excessive overtime and had been accused of various infractions, including mistreating inmates at the jail, recklessly...
...guardian of decency. He was the host of a public-access TV show, The Naked Truth 2000. Among his regular topics were local politics and society's war against black males. He also wrote a weekly column, "Tell It Like It Is," for the Champion, a black paper in DeKalb. As far back as 1994, he wrote that the Confederate flag "represents an act of treason, the enslavement, rape, murder and torture of Africans and African Americans. It is beyond belief that any sane person would want to preserve such a hideous legacy." He had few friends among the area...
Though a Republican at heart, Derwin knew that victory lay with the Democratic Party, which predominates in DeKalb. Indeed, in the summer primaries, there were no Republican candidates. So a victory over Dorsey, the Democratic incumbent, would mean a virtual victory in November. The primary, however, was too close to call among the four candidates, and Dorsey and Derwin, the top two, were forced into a runoff. An already bitter battle dissolved into a war of personal attacks...
...followed. Late one night the candidate and another county official were shadowed by a mysterious man in a dark Ford Expedition as they stood on a sidewalk outside a Decatur restaurant and talked about the extent of the corruption, possibly involving bail bondsmen at the jail. Jack Stanford, a DeKalb police officer and close campaign aide, even suggested Derwin and the others begin carrying guns. None of it spooked Derwin. "All of us be careful," he would...
...paying rent, the companies may have been allowed by former sheriffs to operate without posting $150,000 cash or property bonds, contrary to jail policy. After being sworn in, Derwin planned to evict the bail bondsmen, which would have had deep financial consequences. A legit bonding company in DeKalb County can generate $40,000 a month. There may have been other ways to boost income. Already, auditors are trying to account for $400,000 in bond forfeitures that are missing, overdue or otherwise not collected. This supposedly was the topic of conversation between Derwin Brown and the county official (clerk...