Suspended deputy will reimburse county for phone use

Sheriff Phil Redmond allowed an indicted deputy to continue using his county cell phone even after he was suspended because the sheriff didn't anticipate the suspension would last long, according to Iredell County Commissioners.

The deputy, Tommy Adams, was suspended after a state grand jury indicted him in December 2010 for obstruction of justice.

"(Chief Deputy) Rick Dowdle has responded that when Adams was suspended he did not think the suspension would be for an extended period," Commissioner Steve Johnson said in an e-mail to the Report late last week. "Obviously that was not the case."

Commissioner Ken Robertson said it appears to him that the county-funded phone "was basically forgotten."

Meanwhile, over the course of four months, Adams spent thousands of minutes on the cell phone, including calls to his defense attorney and the sheriff's home.

One week after the Report exposed the suspended deputy's continued use of the phone, Iredell commissioners said the county finance department would seek reimbursement – $269.55 – from Adams.

Adams' original charges were much higher - $220.80 in February alone – but the costs were adjusted apparently because he was on the sheriff's shared-minutes plan.

In fact, Adams' charges, even while suspended, were consistently higher than any other deputy with a cell phone, according to the monthly bills.

Robertson said for the most part, the county is not responsible for the sheriff's office. "The sheriff's department operates as a stand alone department, and the sheriff is not under the direct control of the county manager, so there is a very real and significant degree of separation, although we provide their funding," he said. 

"When other elected official(s) are responsible for these departments, the financial accountability and responsibility is through them first," he said. "As a commissioner, I try to allow other office holders the opportunity to fulfill their duties without my routine interference. Anytime commissioners probe into the inner workings of the schools or the sheriff's departments, we walk a fine line between seeking proper accountability, interfering in the operation of departments, and assuming the legal responsibility of other officials who were elected by the voters to actually do the job.

"In the Army," Robertson said, "we would say that it is wise to 'stay in your lane'."

However, he said, "The question of whether it was proper for a suspended employee to continue to have use of a cell phone seems rather apparent, but like with many law enforcement situations, there may have been other factors pertaining to the issue about which I am unaware.

"In this case the cost of the phone service will likely be recovered, and I understand that is being pursued without direct county commissioner intervention," Robertson said.

Commissioner Frank Mitchell said the county will not, on the other hand, try to recuperate what it paid for a newspaper reporter's cell phone over the course of several years. "It appears the sheriff's department willingly let the reporter have use of a phone for emergency management reasons and will not be trying to recoup (the) cost for its use," he said.

Commissioners Marvin Norman and Renee Griffith did not respond to Report questions.