Sheriff indicted for forcing inmates to pay room & board
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wed November 14, 2007
Area: Tallahassee, Thomasville
A south Georgia sheriff has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly 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.
Share your thoughts in the Forum
