Sheriff's detective charged with having sex with informant

I'm sure Kelly will look into whatever went wrong. Along with the hiring of Jay Barret, the son who was selling drugs in his home, and the reserve deputy who was drunk with a firearm at the Albany fair. I don't remember having this many issues with the previous Sheriff. If a CEO was this close to conflict on several occasions he would be let go. I hope BCI and that Special Prosecutor continue to look into the county and local government. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it's awful strange that all of the sudden drug busts & the Sheriff's office appear almost once a week in the news, and then with this arrest the judge let the deputy out without a bond. He should have to sit in jail like the rest of the world. I pray for those that have a good heart and sound mind while they go out to make those difficult decisions every day. I hope that this does not discourage them from doing what is right.  

I am so grateful that the good Lord extends more grace than people do to one another.  It's easy to stand in judgment and pick people apart without having to show a name or a face or prove their guilt.  If any one of us had to open the closet door for close inspection of our own skeletons, I'm sure we'd be mortified to realize what is really in there, while friends and family wagged their tongues about it. 

It doesn't surprise me that someone would make the leap from successful drug busts to a conspiracy.  Seems to be the norm for the day.  The reality is that no one was complaining while the drug busts were thwarting dealers from being able to see their wares!  Come on, we don't sell these people down the road who have nothing to do with the cases at hand...they've done nothing wrong.  I'm quite grateful for the hard work of all these people who put their lives on the line for us. 

Well, I guess it's human nature to be critical of the other person while not noticing that the pointing finger is only one while 3 more (not counting the thumb) are pointing backwards....myself included.

Innocent until proven guilty.  Kinda confused about the "I pray for those that have a good heart and sound mind....difficult decisions...I hope this does not discourage them from doing what is right."...come on...of course it discourages them to hear the ever-present conspiracy theory all the time.  How about we all pray for them and let God sort out the details of their ways.

Mary Ann R.

The reality is that the war on drugs leads directly to police corruption. The temptation must be great even for the most honest of deputies. I mean, police are given blanket authority to search and sieze with the barest of suspicions. I don't know if you drive around uptown Athens much, but I do, and over half of the people I see pulled over are getting their cars searched. Yes, I know that the amount of time spent on the side of the road affects the likelihood of me seeing them, but it's still a startlingly high percentage. Anything siezed by the police is gone for good, regardless of guilt or innocence. They avoid the 4th Amendment by charging the property or money with the crime. No, you didn't read that wrong. And the best part? The property siezed becomes the property of the police department that siezed it. You have to be a pretty honest man to not get just a little greedy under such circumstances. You have massive power to make suspects do almost whatever you want them to, like have sex with you, for example. You have the power to plant evidence if somebody gets lippy with you. I'm not saying that that happens in Athens, but it sure happens in the rest of the country. And the more drug busts you make, regardless of the severity, the higher your budget gets, and the higher the chance that the boss keeps his job. It's a recipe for a culture of corruption, and it's a testament to the caliber of police that we have in this county that we're not just a smaller New Orleans or LA.

I know that some of you will counter this with "Drugs are Bad". I won't argue that drugs do some bad things to people. I will, however, argue that most of the bad things are a result of prohibition rather than the drugs themselves. Nearly all the crime would disappear without prohibition, and if even a tiny fraction of the money we spend on the war on drugs (which, by the way, has done absolutely nothing to reduce drug use) were put into treatment and education, we could get rid of almost all the rest of the problems. I'll point out one more thing that we Appalachians should appreciate: about twenty years ago we outlawed OTC amphetamines because a combination of shady marketing, a cult of thin, and poor education left housewives hooked on diet pills. About fifteen years ago we outlawed OTC ephedrine, and then a few years later OTC pseudoephedrine, because teenagers were getting high on trucker speed. Now to replace what were simple, comparatively safe drugs, we've taken to cooking cough syrup, chemicals, and garbage to make crystal meth, and it's become the rural crack cocaine. I think we all know somebody whose life has been ruined, or ended, by this abomination of a filthy drug. It's not even a proper drug, for that matter, it's garbage. People will use drugs; it's a fact of life. Even now there's a better than even chance you're reading this while drinking coffee, tea, or soda. The war on drugs has merely forced drug users to do so in a criminal and unsafe manner.

"...In a news release Friday Warren stated that Kelly, his deputies, his office staff and Warren himself "are shocked and devastated by the allegations..."

I'm Shocked!  Yesiree, Shocked, I say!  -D.Warren