Alabama has 67 sheriffs -- elected law-enforcement officers who police unincorporated townships where they answer only to voters, not city governments -- and 9 out of ten of the sheriffs who lost their 2018 elections have been accused by their successors of engaging in fraud, waste and destruction of public property before leaving office. Read the rest

Etowah, Alabama County Sheriff Todd Entrekin took advantage of a Great-Depression-era rule that lets the sheriff pocket any "excess" from the budget for prisoner meals (provided he makes up any shortfall from his own finances) and used $750,000 that had been allocated to feed prisoners to build himself a luxury beach house. When his gardener tipped off a Birmingham News reporter, the gardener was locked up in the Sheriff's jail on mysterious drug charges. Read the rest