Governor suspends Worth County sheriff from office

ATLANTA — Gov. Nathan Deal has suspended embattled Worth County Sheriff Jeff Hobby from office.

There was no immediate word Monday on who would be placed in the office on an interim basis.

Hobby is under indictment in connection with an April search conducted by his office at Worth County High School. The suspension is to be in force until the case is resolved or Hobby’s term of office, a four-year term that began Jan. 1, ends, whichever occurs first.

According to Deal’s executive order, he received a report Thursday from a three-member committee, which consisted of two Georgia sheriffs and a member of the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, that unanimously found the charges lodged against Hobby in the indictment were related to and adversely affected his administration of the Worth County Sheriff’s Office.

Deal ordered Monday “that Sheriff Jeff Hobby is hereby suspended from office immediately and without further action pending the final disposition of the case or until the expiration of his term of office, whichever occurs first” as provided in the Official Code of Georgia.

The Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council already had suspended Hobby’s law enforcement powers, but until Deal’s order the sheriff had continued to act in an administrative capacity.

On Oct. 3, Hobby was indicted by a Worth County grand jury on a count of violation of oath of office, two counts of false imprisonment under the color of law and one count of sexual battery. Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney Paul Bowden, whose circuit includes Worth County, sent a copy of the indictments with a letter to Deal on Oct. 16.

Under state law, Deal had to wait 14 days from the receipt of the report to name a three-member committee to review the indictment and make a non-binding recommendation to him regarding suspension of Hobby from office. On Oct. 31, he appointed Attorney General Christopher Carr, Gordon County Sheriff Mitch Ralston and Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese to form the panel.

Bowden wrote in the letter that the grand jury heard more than 12 hours of evidence regarding the April 14 search of Worth County High School students.

“The grand jury returned true bills against Sheriff Hobby, along with two of his deputies, as the result of a search of Worth County High School, which the Worth County Sheriff’s office conducted on April 14, 2017,” Bowden said in the letter. “The investigation into this matter began when a citizen filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office alleging a Sheriff’s deputy inappropriately touched the citizen’s daughter during the school search on April 17, 2017.”

The prosecutor said Hobby asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate the claim, and GBI agents “quickly discovered the search conducted at the school was not the typical school search.”

“Sheriff Hobby ordered his deputies to conduct an intrusive search of the bodies of all students present at the high school on that date,” Bowden wrote. “The deputies of the Sheriff’s Office searched each student despite having no probable cause to do so. While the Sheriff has made public statements indicating he instructed his deputies to conduct routine pat-downs of the students, the videos, obtained from the school, show students being subjected to an intrusive search, which included at minimum a search of their pockets and shoes.

“Many students were also searched on the inside of their waistbands. Additionally, numerous female students complained of being searched under their intimate garments.”

During his interview with GBI agents, the sheriff admitted that one of his deputies expressed concerns about the search method of another deputy and the sheriff “indicated he told the complaining deputy, who was not a supervisor, to address the issue with her fellow deputy.”

Bowden said Hobby also stated “he saw this same deputy searching in a manner that was not consistent with what he claims were his directives; however, he, by his own admission, failed to take any action to address this issue.”

While the prosecutor said Hobby indicated the reason for the pat-down search was to locate illegal drugs in the school, Bowden said that “a pat-down, by its very nature, is only appropriate for officer safety or to locate weapons.”

In the Oct. 16 letter, the prosecutor included an incident in which Hobby interjected himself into a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent’s interview of Hobby’s 17-year-old son, Zach Hobby, who was arrested Oct. 9 by Poulan police on a drug-related charge. The GBI was handling that investigation at Bowden’s request.

The prosecutor said the GBI ended the interview after the sheriff and his wife, an employee of the sheriff’s office, barged into the interview room, saying they were invoking the teenager’s Fifth Amendment rights for him. Zach Hobby was being held in the jail operated by his father at the time and, until that point, had chosen to speak with the agent after being advised of his rights by the agent, the district attorney said in the letter. He said the interview and the sheriff’s interruption were recorded on audio.

An unusual incident involving Hobby’s office also occurred on Oct. 19 when two sheriff’s deputies clad in civilian clothes, vests with the word “POLICE” written on them and masks pulled over two men in a van traveling on South County Line Road on the western edge of the county, holding them for an hour while they searched the vehicle. The Herald received calls from individuals who had seen or heard about the incident and were concerned whether it was legitimate.

The sheriff’s office on Oct. 20 denied that the office had an unmarked unit operating, but an Open Records request by The Albany Herald revealed the incident occurred at the same time and location that sheriff’s deputies reported a traffic stop. One of the men stopped also videoed part of the event on his cellphone. The newspaper also received an audio recording of a 911 call in which a concerned citizen reported it on Oct. 19.

On Nov. 3, Maj. Mike Harrelson of the Worth County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the stop was made by two deputies working drugs. The two men said they were told they had been pulled over because of a seat belt violation.

Harrelson said the deputies had been reprimanded for violating department protocol, which requires that a marked unit be on the scene as well. Harrelson said he and the officers were the only ones at the Worth Sheriff’s Office who knew about the operation.

The Tifton Circuit DA’s office told The Herald that incident was not under investigation because no complaint had been lodged.

Hobby, a former Georgia State Patrol officer, was re-elected to office in November and began a new four-year term of office in January.