Lawman Keeps $750K In Inmate Food Funds, Buys Beach Home, Blames Media
Source: Talking Points Memo
The sheriff says he’s following the law. The inmates say they’re going hungry.
According to a string of reports from AL.com, Sheriff Todd Entrekin of Etowah County, Alabama, has pocketed over three quarters of a million dollars intended for inmates’ meals, buying himself an expensive beach house, among other items, while leaving detainees eating rotten or contaminated food. Not long after acting as a source for AL.com’s reporting, one local man found himself charged with a felony by Entrekin’s office.
Entrekin has been taking advantage of a state law, passed before World War II, that allows sheriffs to keep for themselves any excess taxpayer dollars intended to feed inmates in their jails. He’s one of 49 Alabama sheriffs named in a lawsuit filed in January by human rights groups alleging abuse of the law. The groups say that because Alabama sheriffs have complete discretion over what inmates eat, the law incentivizes sheriffs to cut costs on food.
In response, Entrekin, who is running for reelection this year, has come out swinging, calling the claims “fake news” churned out by the “liberal media.”
Entrekin did not immediately return TPM’s questions seeking comment.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/todd-entrekin-blames-liberal-media-alabama-sheriffs-pocket-inmate-food-funds
What the fuck is wrong with this picture.................fraud is still fraud on the taxpayers of Alabama...............
= new reply since forum marked as read
"The state law is the issue, as it allows such practice to occur..."
No one is arguing otherwise. Merely pointing towards a specific example of that law's excessive misuse to otherwise revisit the law in question. Which, being wholly relevant in the here and now, makes an Old Story New Again... 
