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Feds: Sheriff, not county, will get drug funds

County can audit figures, however

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County’s share of federal drug money and property confiscated from drug dealers will continue to be submitted to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, according to an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn had asked the DOJ to begin submitting those funds and property through the county’s finance department. Currently the funds are distributed directly to the sheriff’s department because of a guideline that the funds be spent only on law enforcement equipment and/or training.

Sheriff Randall Johnson requested that the funds and equipment continue to be forwarded to the sheriff’s department under the direction of Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan, the department’s director of investigations.

The sheriff’s department’s drug task force, a group of undercover agents, often works federal drug busts with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and for its efforts the department receives a take of the funds and equipment seized.

In the past three years, the sheriff’s department has been awarded $792,000 in such money and equipment, according to records obtained from the department.

The department has used the drug funds to augment its equipment, significantly through the purchase of a helicopter that is used for crime suppression techniques, often in support of drug task force missions.

In a letter to assistant county attorney Dennis Davenport, DOJ senior trial attorney Steven H. Schlesinger said the funds and equipment from the feds will continue to go to the sheriff’s department “unless there is a change in the attorney general’s sharing authority under federal law, or Georgia law is amended to prohibit county sheriffs from receiving sharing distributions.”

Schlesinger also noted that the federal guidelines “do not preclude information on federal equitable sharing monies and revenue accounts from being included in any financial report or audit required by the State of Georgia or requested by the Fayette County Board of Commissioners.

“It is our hope that the Fayette County Board of Commissioners and the Sheriff’s Office will be able to work together to resolve whatever differences they may have regarding the receipt, accounting for, and use of federal equitable sharing monies, so that law enforcement and the citizens of Fayette County may continue to benefit from the equitable sharing program,” Schlesinger wrote.

Sheriff’s officials contend they made their drug seizure fund purchases available for inspection by the county auditor earlier this year.