Corrupt Kentucky sheriff brought down by reporters

Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic in the United States. Few places have been hit harder than Kentucky, a state that has also been devastated by meth addiction in Whitley County. Kentucky, in the heart of the Appalachians, things took a turn for the worse when men suspected of being at the center. The main person responsible for the drug trafficking was Sheriff Lawrence Hodge, the county's top law enforcement officer. Sheriff Hodge was long suspected of being dirty, but no one, not even federal agents, could prove it. That's when two local journalists, both in their 20s, began their own investigation and were soon discovered snooping into the affairs of a powerful county

sheriff

can be risky business the story will be continued in a moment you know you're twenty you're taking a shower day and you're getting ready to go to class and you get a call from a federal agent because there's a credible threat on your life, it's all so real that you know no, you don't think much about it and then that night you know you're training her like God, someone wants to kill me that's the Lord and that's the

sheriff

the sheriff wants to kill you that's not exactly how Adam Solfee had envisioned a career in journalism Adam was born and raised in Whitley County in 2009 he was a sophomore in college local needed a job the county newspaper The Times Tribune had a vacancy and soon Adam had his first mission and dangerous enemies why don't you feel compelled to buy a gun?

You have a credible threat on your life and it seemed like a pretty reasonable thing Samantha also bought a gun at the same time as Samantha scammer then she was 27 she was editor in chief of the Times Tribune in Adams we were reporting on people involved in drug trafficking and people who They were all drugged with oxys. I do not know what. What was I going to do I thought if something happened I would fight Samantha was exotic according to the Whitley County Board of Standards and New Orleans educated in Boston tangled with public officials as editor of a small newspaper in East Texas saw familiar signs in Whitley County, there are problems in the community with the old system,

corrupt

politics, that kind of thing seems to be, in many ways, that the strength of this community was also its weakness in some ways, this is a nice and polite place where the people have a polite conversation.

I'm very proud to be here and it's a good thing, but it's also a bad thing in the sense that it doesn't allow you to see the things that you change. The Kentucky town of Whitley County, 35,000, is located in the southeast corner of the state, bordering the people of Tennessee here. take pride in the natural beauty of Cumberland Falls and historic Sanders Cafe, birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, there is poverty too, median income is $26,000, drug addiction rents throughout the region, read signs that they identify the houses that were once used as meth labs and then there are prescription drugs.

Oxycodone abuse flows so freely that they called this stretch of I-75 the Pill Pipeline in 2002. Lawrence Hodge was elected sheriff of Whitley County on the promise that he would clean it up. The sheriff's raid on a meth lab was covered by the local CBS affiliate. when I knocked on the door the smell was already knocking me down, we're glad to close it and make a dent in our drug problem here, but early in his tenure there were rumors around the county that the sheriff had been banned in about 2004. just plain old. It went downhill and he was

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, he was involved with drug traffickers who took bribes and extorted money from defendants.

Todd remains a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms says the FBI and State Police tried to build a case against a part of Hadj but were unable to penetrate his inner circle - political drug dealers and corrupt cops - he It was very isolated, what do you mean isolated? There was a lot of fear of what Lawrence might do if they cooperated with federal agents or the state police. He was untouchable. Yes, editor Samantha Swindler had heard similar stories and suspected that Sheriff Hodge might have a weakness in a paper trail, so she reviewed the department evidence law.

There were months in which nothing was recorded. I knew this wasn't right because we had arrests every day in this area, particularly drug related. and when it was drug related, you know there was probably a gun and it wasn't there, but to mount a serious sheriff's investigation, Samantha needed help. Why would you hire a 20 year old? His only journalism experience was working on his high school newspaper. Well, when you say it like that, it's true. Well, he was smart and knew the community and cared about the local government. My aunt overdosed and the first question I had was: I wonder if she got her drugs from someone who was the sheriff.

Protecting Adam she got to work reviewing years of case files, she noticed a break where the Sheriff's Department confiscated drugs and weapons that should have been lost. He was tedious and time consuming. At the time he was working up to 70 hours a week. He was crazy and unhealthy, but I was, you know, just driven. He knew he was onto something and couldn't stop what he was doing was a series of felony cases involving guns and drugs in which deals were being conducted. the sentences were mysteriously reduced, and the defense attorney in each case was Sheriff Hodge's close friend, Ron Reynolds.

One case involved this man Rick Benson, a retired social worker. In May 2004, Sheriff Hodge and his men raided Benson's home and found 17 guns in addition to drugs. Vinson had a prior felony drug and weapons conviction, so he was prohibited from possessing firearms. You knew you would go to prison for the rest of my life. If you were scared. Weren't you terrified? Because my world ended during the raid. Sheriff Hodge found Benson's bank statement there were six hundred thousand dollars in his checking account alone Despite appearances this self-proclaimed meth abuser was a millionaire heir to a publishing fortune the night of his arrest Benson says Sheriff Hodge He offered him a deal if he cooperated, the sheriff would arrange for Benson to be represented by his old friend, attorney Ron Reynolds.

He had heard of Ron and his reputation was that he could fix things. He said, "I'll guarantee you admission. There's no jail time, but you'll have to move out of Kentucky. Did you think he was on the rise? Well, no, if he were on the rise, he wouldn't have been able to do it. How much did his feet hurt?" ?50,000 over $150,000 is a lot of money the rest of your life in prison is a lot of time Rick Benson says he was also forced to pay the sheriff $10,000 in cash and make a donation to the Sheriff's Department of $25,000, that's enough to make you say : "Okay, what's going on here?" Then every time you see the actual cashier's check on that Falak where he donated twenty-five thousand to the sheriff's department as a condition of his plea deal, it's just crazy with the information about that case in others Samantha Adam shares Hodge's press for an interview he reluctantly agreed, he was just relaxed, he leaned back in his chair, you know, being that good guy, so the sheriff thought it was a field trip, yeah, you know , you have this little girl from out of town in this twenty-year-old college kid.

We played along, we played NOS for a long time, we let him lie over the course of that legally recorded interview without Sheriff Hodges' knowledge. Adam asked him about the gun confiscated from Rick Benson, but the sheriff's answers did not match the facts he stated to the ATF. the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms only let them know who rigged the incident, he was a big case for the website one year, yeah, I mean seventeen year old girls would be at risk for being serious, I think They probably must have done it to stop by here, so I need to ask them if they received that guidance that we dismembered.

So when the sheriff said he gave guns to the ATF, he knew he was lying, they never took the guns. I didn't even open a case in this situation and once we had that, I mean it has a great story. I was like wow, I can't believe he just said he kept lying, lying, lying and I was giddy, what do you think that two twenty-somethings with pens and notebooks could do? what season the law enforcement officers could not do, they were not dangerous to him. I think Lawrence was thinking: Hey kids, let me show you how the Sheriff's Department works.

You know, here's the jail and here's Barney and they know everyone from Mayberry, but they. They took him by surprise because they had done their research, the

reporters

then filed what is called an open records request that requires the sheriff to show that Robinson's guns were stored, but six days later, Adam received a surprising phone call. The sheriff's departments had broken in and you know how that gets. I got a bad girl quickly, that was my getcha moment. I knew she had set it up. She knew it. Sheriff Hodge claimed that guns, drugs and other evidence had been stolen.

The office was trashed, but the doors showed no signs of forced entry, they just looked like a burglary so they could explain while the drugs and weapons had been missing and had been missing for several years, so what was Sheriff Hodge doing with them? these weapons and drugs? He gave the weapons to political friends, they sold them, exchanged them for oxycodone, it became a drug. In itself, he was a very serious drug addict, he had a bad addiction to prescription painkillers. Adam interviewing Samantha with the sheriff and the fake robbery gave authorities the breathing room they needed, the man once thought untouchable was now feeling the pressure days later. an undercover officer recorded Sheriff Hodge threatening to kill Adam, he said I'm going to kill him and the informant said no you're just mad and he says no you don't understand I'm going to kill him.

I've already been to his house. I know where he lives despite the threat. The Times Tribune continued to publish damaging allegations against the sheriff, and a state audit suggested he may have been stealing money from the department. He was just taking money and cashing it in at convenient times. Like before the three-day weekend or just before his wife's birthday in May 2010, the people of Whitley County had had enough and voted to recall Sheriff Hodge. six months later, a state grand jury indicted him and Whitley County's most powerful law enforcement officer took him away. handcuffed and in his uniform, but Lawrence Hodge still had influence around the same time two local thugs Friends of the sheriff drove to Adam's house the passenger in the vehicle gets out he approaches me without saying a word he puts his hand a little in his waist and I just quickly pulled out the gun, he had a gun with you at the time I didn't go anywhere unarmed, he saw it come out of the holster, I didn't point it at him or anything and he explained to me that they were looking for trash. metal on my dead end street and they would go now you called for a gun if you were prepared to use it well you never draw a gun unless you are prepared to use it after that encounter the federal authorities forced Adam to leave the city under their control The protection already facing state charges Lawrence Hodge was also being pursued by federal investigators.

Central to his case was attorney Ron Reynolds, the sheriff's accomplice in the Rick Benson shakedown. Reynolds turned on his old friend, implicating the sheriff in the extortion plot. Lawrence Hodge had no choice but to face a prosecutor told him we can put him in prison for a very, very long time our case is strong he will be convicted you can see he was defeated last May two years after Samantha and Adam started His investigation former sheriff Lawrence Hodge pleaded guilty to racketeering, drug distribution and money laundering. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. He declined our request for an interview which is mainly due to the work you two did.

Hey? Yes, Samantha Adams' report also led to Lawrence's 15 conviction. Hodges' associates and both journalists left the Times Tribune. Samantha lives in Oregon, where she is the editor and publisher of a small weekly newspaper. Adam is just out of college for a year and remains unemployed in Whitley County. What went through your mind when you saw Sheriff Hodge handcuffed in his uniform, you know, a lot of people thought I would be jumping for joy and you know, everyone was elated that the sheriff was arrested and it really isn't, it's terrible that this happened. I hate to see it in my community.

I hate seeing that plastered all over. About the place, you know, Whitley County is anonymous now with a corrupt sheriff. I do not like that. I think the real story should be that a group of people here got together and you know, cleaned it up.