This article first appeared Thursday in Mississippi Today and is published under a Creative Commons license. Reporters Jerry Mitchell and Ilyssa Daly authored this story.
In 2014, Bryan Bailey, the sheriff of Rankin County, Miss., made what seemed like a series of routine requests of the local district attorney’s office.
He needed grand jury subpoenas, he said, to force the phone company to turn over records of calls and text messages for what he called a “confidential internal investigation.”
Sheriff Bailey scrawled a brief note on a subpoena form and gave it to a paralegal in the district attorney’s office. “Please keep this confidential between you and I,” the note read. “Possible wrongdoing by school district employee.”
But his requests had nothing to do with alleged wrongdoing, or any criminal investigation, according to a previously undisclosed report obtained by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today. Instead, Sheriff Bailey tapped into the power of a grand jury at least eight times over a year to spy on his married girlfriend and the school employee with whom she was also “unfaithful,” the documents show.
The investigative report, compiled in 2016 by the district attorney at the time, Michael Guest, laid out evidence that Sheriff Bailey had duped the prosecutor’s office and potentially violated state law on fraud, a felony that carries up to five years in prison.
Mr. Guest, now a U.S. congressman and chairman of the House Committee on Ethics, decided he could not pursue the case further because of conflicts of interest, including his years long friendship with the sheriff. He told two local judges what he had discovered and passed his investigation on to the state attorney general.
And that’s where the matter ended.
According to interviews with former staff members in the attorney general’s office, no one questioned the sheriff or conducted a full investigation. Jim Hood, the attorney general at the time, asked a senior attorney to look into the matter but did not pursue criminal charges.
Neither his office nor Mr. Guest informed the state agency that oversees law enforcement certifications, even though Mr. Guest was a voting member of the board. That agency could have reviewed the allegations and possibly revoked Sheriff Bailey’s certification.
For seven years, every elected official who learned of the allegations kept them secret from the public, leaving citizens of Rankin County in the dark, even as they twice voted to re-elect Sheriff Bailey. He is on the verge of another re-election, having won the Republican primary in August and facing no opponent in November.
His conduct is the latest in a series of examples uncovered by The Times and Mississippi Today of how sheriffs in Mississippi can act with impunity, often using the power of their office to weaponize the criminal justice system for their own benefit with no risk of being held accountable, even when faced with serious allegations of abuse.
Sheriff Bailey and his department have been under national scrutiny and a federal civil rights investigation since five deputies and a local police officer pleaded guilty this year to torturing two Black men and shooting one of them in the mouth.
Sheriff Bailey did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did local officials aware of the allegations and the report, including then-Circuit Court Judges John H. Emfinger and William E. Chapman III. Mr. Guest declined to comment.
Mr. Hood said in a statement that he did not remember all the details of how the case was handled, but he insisted that his office had investigated and made the right call in not prosecuting.
He said he had passed Mr. Guest’s report on to Ed Snyder, who was a special assistant attorney general working part time. Mr. Snyder recalled receiving the report but said he was asked to “take a look,” not to investigate. He said he only reviewed what criminal statutes might be used to prosecute.
Normally, a case involving possible public corruption would have been handled by the Public Integrity Division within the attorney general’s office. Mr. Hood could not recall why he did not send the case there, but said he trusted Mr. Snyder’s judgment.
Mr. Hood’s best recollection, he said, is that he chose not to pursue charges because the sheriff had a plausible reason for investigating the people targeted by the subpoenas. He said he believed his former office’s investigation had found that those people were involved in “some criminal activity, maybe drugs or a home burglary.”
But neither of the people whose phone calls and texts were subpoenaed were ever charged in a drug or burglary case, or any other criminal case. And there is no public evidence that indicates the subpoenas were part of a criminal inquiry.
If there had been a legitimate criminal case involving Sheriff Bailey’s girlfriend, the sheriff should not have been involved in the case at all, said Matthew Steffey, a lawyer and a professor at the Mississippi College School of Law.
“There was an obvious and profound conflict of interest here,” he said. “If there was a legitimate criminal investigation, the sheriff should not have been subpoenaing his own girlfriend’s phone records. And he certainly cannot do it without the knowledge or the direction of the district attorney’s office.”
That the sheriff has not been prosecuted or otherwise held accountable, despite the evidence against him, reflects “an utter failure of our criminal justice system,” Professor Steffey added.
Mr. Guest began investigating Sheriff Bailey in the spring of 2016 after receiving a tip about his use of grand jury subpoenas.
He was initially “very doubtful” and began looking into the matter “in hopes to put these rumors quickly to rest,” he wrote in his investigative report.
But he soon discovered a series of phone record requests that appeared suspicious based on the numbers that Sheriff Bailey had targeted.
One of the numbers belonged to Kristi Pennington Shanks, an administrative assistant in the sheriff’s office who had begun a relationship with Sheriff Bailey while she was married, according to the report. The other belonged to a local school district employee with whom Ms. Shanks also had been involved, the report states.
Mr. Guest wrote in his report that his office was not part of any investigation into the school employee or Ms. Shanks. Ms. Shanks, who remains the sheriff’s girlfriend, did not respond to requests for comment.
According to copies of the subpoena requests included in Mr. Guest’s report, the first request came from a Rankin County deputy who emailed the district attorney’s office on Jan. 30, 2014. He asked a paralegal there, Kim Amason, to write up and stamp a subpoena for a list of the school employee’s outgoing phone calls that month. Ms. Amason did not respond to a request for comment.
Throughout 2014, there were at least seven more subpoenas for texts and calls associated with the numbers of the former school employee and Ms. Shanks. Most of the requests directed phone companies to send records to Sheriff Bailey.
Grand juries, composed of up to two dozen people selected from the community, operate in secret. They investigate potential crimes, subpoena evidence, compel testimony and decide whether charges should be filed.
Practices vary by state, but typically the district attorney’s office files paperwork for subpoenas on behalf of the grand jury, without a review by jurors or a judge. Law enforcement officers can request such subpoenas, serve them on the person or entity holding the records, and directly collect the evidence. Afterward, it is normal practice for officers to turn this evidence over to prosecutors, who maintain permanent investigative files on cases.
Under Mississippi law, grand jury subpoenas can be issued only to aid a legitimate criminal investigation. Violators can be prosecuted for fraud and face years in prison.
A decade ago, the state attorney general’s office under Mr. Hood charged a former Meridian police officer with wire fraud after he forged signatures on a grand jury subpoena to get his wife’s phone records when he suspected she had been unfaithful. He was convicted and spent a year in prison.
Experts said the statute of limitations had passed to bring any potential state charges that might have applied to Sheriff Bailey’s actions. But details of the case could be getting a second look by federal authorities.
Fred Shanks, whose ex-wife became Sheriff Bailey’s girlfriend and a target of his subpoenas, said he was recently interviewed by the F.B.I. Mr. Shanks is Mr. Guest’s cousin and was the source of the original tip that prompted him to investigate.
In an interview with reporters, Mr. Shanks said he told authorities several times that both his and his girlfriend’s phone’s were being improperly tracked by Sheriff Bailey.
In 2015, after he got divorced, Mr. Shanks started dating Kristen Liberto, an investigator with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office.
Ms. Liberto said her professional relationship with the sheriff then soured. She found herself under review for leaving work to go to a chiropractor, and she discovered a tracking device attached to her car, she said. In October 2015, she said, Sheriff Bailey called her into his office and gave her two options: resign, or be arrested for filling out fraudulent timecards.
She resigned and felt “absolutely devastated,” she said.
The sheriff also demanded that Ms. Liberto return a piece of county equipment that was in her possession. “I want my tracker back,” she recalled him saying.
Then, in 2016, Mr. Shanks received a tip that Sheriff Bailey had previously obtained his and his ex-wife’s phone records. He said he immediately called Mr. Guest. “There were multiple people who could have done something about this, but they did nothing,” said Mr. Shanks, who has represented Rankin County in the Mississippi Legislature since 2018. “It begs the question, how many other people did he do this to?”
Ilyssa Daly examines the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship. Jerry Mitchell, co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that’s now part of Mississippi Today, is an investigative reporter who has examined civil rights-era cold murder cases in the state for more than 30 years.
75 comments:
the rankin county sheriffs office ,and lets not leave out the fools at the reservoir police, are where rampant corruption meet the dukes of hazzard.
Good Lord. What a pathetic excuse for leadership. Is there anyone to hold him accountable?
The RCSO is a house of cards, and Bailey is the dealer.
Your comment was fine til the last line. Take it out and it goes up. ;-)
Anyone who thinks the power structure in Rankin County is going to turn their backs on Bailey because the Barksdalers and, God forbid, the New York Times are after him just hasn't been paying attention.
The Sheriff is a dirty MF. It appears we have a den of dirty MF's in the DA's office,circuit judges, current congressman and former AG Hood. The Apple Dumpling Gang.
Bryan Bailey is being revealed as a character in a Burt Reynolds moonshine movie.
What's wrong with the Res Police?
This report is a good example of the importance of a free press. But for Jerry Mitchell, 99+% of the electorate would never know this.
RMQ
MT had better double checked everything they wrote. Those are some high level accusations being tossed around. How is this just now coming to light? I am thinking something got glossed over by the time it got to Hood. Can't imagine his passing on slamming a local sheriff if he was given enough of the details. Does Ms have RICO laws or are they just federal? I've never cared for Guess at any level of politics he's been involved in. Doesn't matter what side of the politics you fall on, this needs to be thoroughly investigated.
I will take Rankin County and all the warts over JACKTOWN Downtown Anarchy run by the City Counsel and Justice turnstile any day.
It’s time for an auditor to look into the personal uses of the Sheriff’s Department vehicles.
Going to the grocery store, getting haircuts, driving to the fitness center, on the tax payers money is about out of control.
And he's running unopposed
@11:38
It’s funny you mention that.
I have seen Bryan Bailey at the Pearl Walmart at 3Pm with a damn INMATE pushing a shopping cart for him. Looked like they were buying party supplies or something.
Someone needs to investigate him using them as personal servants.
"It’s time for an auditor to look into the personal uses of the Sheriff’s Department vehicles.
Going to the grocery store, getting haircuts, driving to the fitness center, on the tax payers money is about out of control."
Hasn't that been looked at and is determined by are they always on call? I see SO SUVs out in Madison Co., all over the place (at residences) and even see a Pearl City police vehicle near my Madison home. Same with game warden vehicles.
Old news and I thought KF hated Mississippi today
So a corrupt sheriff in a corrupt town ran a corrupt police force. Shocking. This same headline could probably be written for 90% of the sheriff offices in the state.
So the sheriff was banging a married woman in his office and also spying on her due to jealousy? How mature.
It’s like Boss Hogg and Roscoe were incorporated into the story line of Days of Our Lives.
Interesting: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/20/ex-inmates-death-gives-diabetic-crucial-transplant/15985517/
This will become a lifetime movie. Married Sheriff dating a married woman who is dating 3 men at once. Therefore, Sheriff taps girlfriend's phone and other boyfriend's phone ALL THE WHILE she is his personal secretary. Sheriff let her work whatever hours she wanted and drive a seized vehicle even though she is employed as a civilian. Tapping phones just to see what all adulterous parties are doing. Yet extremely ballsy but ILLEGAL. FBI is coming. More people will be looked at and the kingdom will crumble.
Conservative Republicans in MS are very tolerant of corruption if perpetrated by other conservatives. Examples : Donald Trump conduct,welfare scandal
Me thinks the Bailey/Guest cabal is fixing to take a tumble, all of their own making. The next domino will be a financial shenanigan.
You folks can be mad all you want. However, Bailey will be re-elected overwhelmingly. Is he corrupt? absolutely! It seems that everyone in public office is corrupt these days but, I sleep very well at night. There is a reason Rankin citizens sleep well and the majority of citizens will re-elect Bailey. Look how corrupt Hinds and Jackson are. Honestly, where would you rather sleep at night. Sorry but, it is what it is.
@11:37 AM
You only say that because he hasn’t killed any of your loved ones or taken a liking to your wife/daughter!
Look at her age. She was a baby while he was her father’s deputy!
AND... he is the next Sheriff of Rankin County
Next story...
Come on, someone bring it
One other thing: Bo Lucky for Rankin County Sheriff and Dr. John Witcher for Congress. Both would be major upgrades.
the only cards the goon squad has left to play are ratting out this sheriff to get a reduced sentence in federal court.
bailey sounds like bernie ebbers when he proclaims ''i did not know about all this''
It’s a tale as old as time: citizens’ fear (of crime, drugs, other religions, whatever) gets exploited by wanna-be autocrats and results in the loss of civil liberties. Stop it while you can.
@12:24 - not everyone is ok with black people being terrorized by racist cops. We understand Rankin County is different and a majority of its citizens are probably happy with their sheriff, but Rankin is still technically a part of the United Stated and needs to follow the constitution. It’s a shame more people in Rankin can’t recognize this as an issue and want to do better on their own, but that’s a discussion for another day. In the meantime, there are plenty of decent people left who will take out your trash for you.
Bailey has managed to draw national/international attention in the NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/us/rankin-county-mississippi-sheriff-abuse.html
Is a write/in campaign possible?
This guys just seems like a stupid redneck with too much authority.
Witcher is a nut case.
Every single one of these fools involved in any way needs to be removed/disbarred and never allowed to run or hold any position in this state again.
Vote Andy Taylor as sheriff of Rankin County. Let's start that write-in campaign.
Bailey needs to resign. New sheriff appointed. Then special election. What is kind of surprising to me. Shanks is cousin of Guest. In fact he was a big supporter- on his most recent re-election team. However, the release of this information is damning to Guest as well. I’m honestly not surprised. Guest and his staff are not who they are portrayed to be. Guest needs to be held accountable too. He needs to step down as well. I’m a Christian. I’m tired of - and I think many others are tired of - these politicians who call themselves conservative Christians and republicans- but their personal actions do not align with either one. Clean house. Term limits.
Bailey can't win if you write in someone's name and that person wins.
Is it true she is also one of his current highest paid employees? The county administrator and supervisors need to wake up. The voters need to take action and write in a new sheriff, and supervisors need to be voted out. Let’s clean the soap opera out of public offices.
If you know where and who he got his start from then you should understand how he is rolled up as they say...Simpson County Sheriff REFLECTION
It's Rankin County and it's next to Jackson and it's full of refugees from South and West Jackson. Their priorities will not hinder the corruption and frequent brutality of their sheriff's department as long as the sheriff and his good ole boys keep Jackson out. Just keep bashing Jackson and he will keep his job despite the other bullshit.
Will one of you Bryan Bailey bootlickers please explain to me how him spying on a married woman, her husband, and her other boyfriend, is keeping Rankin County safe at night?
Also, Guest seemed to not want to go along with Bailey’s criminal shenanigans after he figured out what was going on. He booked a hasty escape out of the Rankin Courthouse. Meanwhile, he still had a home in Rankin and was fully aware of what Bailey is capable of doing to his enemies. So he didn’t press the matter as far as he probably ethically should’ve.
My real question is this, what criminal activity is Bubba Bramlett tolerating from this Lord Farquaad? What subpeona records are being shredded and burned (by inmate labor) right now at the courthouse and prison?
So using false information to obtain warrants to spy on your enemies is illegal??? Whoda think it??
I am not a licensed psychologist. However, these revelations make Bryan Bailey appear to be a very insecure man.
Bailey would be considered honest compared to some of the sheriffs in the other 81 counties.
Now y’all know damned well that crooks can’t police each other! Leave them alone with their adulterous affairs! They don’t run for office to helph yall, they do it for the perks!
There seems to be a lot of long-term bad behavior coming to light on Rankin county officials (Bryan Bailey, John Sullivan, the Goons, certain state-wide office holders past and present, etc.).
I'm sure these guys didn't just wake up lowlifes one morning. How were they able to continue to move up the ranks over many years? Is there some Rankin County code of honor in not acknowledging bad behavior?
Is it the same person who always throws in a “methinks?”
Rankin County is the land of "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" and "professional courtesy."
KF, National Media, please let us know which Judge (s) whom signed off on lil’ Baileys subpoena requests. It is only a matter of time now that the feds are involved, seriously. It would certainly be best to get in front of the PR insanity now. There may be some hope for Rankin County, once idiots like lil Bryan, et al.are permanently purged.
Y’all better be careful or else Bryan Bailey is going to send a drunken goon squad on steroids to your house to beat you up. And if that don’t work he will set up a road block outside you neighborhood and get his red neck goons to take a gander down your pants!
There’s A LOT more to come!
But it will come from outside JJ!
Even that police fan girl at Dark Horse Press reported it sooner!
Sheriff Bailey was almost certainly either complicit with the goon squad, or Sheriff Bailey is extremely incompetent.
Now we learn Sheriff Bailey weaponized the criminal justice system for his own benefit (a Democrat tactic).
Democrats have destroyed Jackson with lawlessness. We don’t need criminal cop PIGS destroying Rankin County.
Time for Bailey to go. If he won’t resign it’s up to Irl Dean and Tate to make him resign.
Otherwise, Bailey knows where some bodies are buried, and that ain’t good for Rankin County, and that ain’t good for Mississippi.
Excuse me? JJ broke the story of the Goon Squad. Provided more thorough coverage of the civil lawsuit than anyone else. Broke the story on the actual indictments in state court and posted the indictments. Go look it up. First to post the federal bills of information. Published photos of the Goon Squad coins. ID'ed Middleton as one of the six when no one else did.
So Jerry Mitchell got a big scoop. It happens. Ran into him a few weeks ago at Circuit Clerk's office when I was there for initials. He and his fellow reporter were there digging through files. Now we know what it was.
It's like we are living in a movie...Mississippi Burning II - Still Burning
No current sitting judge in Rankin County was involved with the requests for, or issuance of, the subpoenae.
@Kingfish.
We aren’t as stupid as you think we are.
You haven’t done A DAMN THING to expose this evil, crooked sheriff.
All you ever do is copy and paste his press releases.
Tell us what investigative work you have done to look into the misdeeds of Bryan Bailey and Kristi Pennington-Shanks?
You wouldn’t even approve a comment about him putting license place scanning surveillance cameras on the road outside his damn neighborhood even though NOBODY said the name of the neighborhood!
Hey Kingfish, If Bailey is savvy enough to write a note to a clerk and say keep this between us and roll like that then there is no way he didn't know about the goon squad. He can't play naive good guy anymore. At the same time if he is stupid enough to write a note to a clerk and roll like that, he has made other mistakes. Good investigative journalists and G men will nail this guy at some point. I don't what kind of education Bailey has but I wonder if he traded his work boots for some shiny ones and the glare blinded him.
Kingfish thinks we are stupid.
Tell us where you investigated the Sheriff, not the Goon Squad!
Tell us where you have published anything about HIM except his press releases and statements.
Then tell us whether or not you have ever received any tips or information in comments that were worthy of investigation, but that you ignored.
Nothing says LOVE like putting your job on the line and risk going to jail for your woman. That's better than diamonds or flowers.
So we have the goon squad and the poon squad competing for control. Clearly there isn’t room for two competing gangs in the same office. I’d bet the goon squad turns on the poon squad. The poon squad better be ready when they go in dry.
Only thing missing is a Love Child from one the girlfriends thrown into the mix someplace...
Rankin County....where if you're highly favored and are an elected/ex-office holder...we will either not charge you or find you innocent. If not true, someone let me know when the last time they did get convicted.
This is why Sheriffs are one of the weakest points in US society when it comes to power and corruption. They are impervious to oversight in weak government, such as LiberaLtarian (not conservative) present day Rankin Government.
No "superior." No Commanding Officer or CINC who can relieve them for loss of confidence in the face of abuse, loss of integrity, nor crime.
Here's the first half of the IACP Law Enforcement Code of Ethics: "Law Enforcement Code of Ethics
"As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve the community; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the constitutional rights of all to liberty, equality, and justice.
I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all and will behave in a manner that does not bring discredit to me or to my agency. I will maintain courageous calm in the face of danger, scorn or ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others. Honest in thought and deed both in my personal and official life, I will be exemplary in obeying the law and the regulations of my department. Whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in my official capacity will be kept ever secret unless revelation is necessary in the performance of my duty.
I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, political beliefs, aspirations, animosities or friendships to influence my decisions."
That alone should call for Bailey's resignation or termination. But, NO ONE speaks up, even with a write in. Much less will fund it. Egregious.
We can either allow the corruption or not. If he gets voted back in, he will be even more currupt because nothing is being done about it. Without consequences the corruption will definitely continue. But, this is America where everyone collectively lowered the bar on public officials. What do you expect?
If the Rankin County sheriff's election were an auction, it would be called bid-rigging, as in "no one else bid on this next car so Bryan can get it cheap."
per article and code:
Under Mississippi law, grand jury subpoenas can be issued only to aid a legitimate criminal investigation. Violators can be prosecuted for fraud and face years in prison
Question:
If the subpoenas were illegal WHO is going to bring the charges? WHO would be responsible for that action?
Replying to 6:49:
HaHaHaHaHaHa
Tate Reeves? Bryan Bailey? And Has been Phil Bryant?
They all have, they all do, and they all will continue to salute Irl Dean Rhodes. He’s a skinny Boss Hogg.
Every stinking, money grubbing, underhanded one of them reports to IDR.
Ahem...wondering why my post suggesting Michael Guest purposefully failing to act purely due to a family relationship.
And in that attempted post, I pretty much wrapped up the dots to include Little-Shanks (and his employment), his friend girl (and her employment), his wife's dalliances (with her employer) and Guest (acting on behalf of the family).
Seems Kingfish is not interested in facts unless he can claim he arrived at them unassisted.
I hope that none of you making these slandering comments lives in Rankin county. He will not resign. He will be re-elected. And he will find out who you are with a subpoena. And he will have his goons ruin your life. Make no mistake. Yes he still has plenty of goons with guns and badges.
Yes, well...
After reading all the accusations about corruption in Jackson, I have to wonder why there's been no specific examples of anything more than mismanagement or failed efforts to solve a problem but somehow Rankin's criminal corruption can be uncovered as has state and national corruption in the GOP.
I'm wondering if Republicans assume everyone is as corrupt as they are and that is the only reason that claim but seldom prove crimes against Democrats (save for the easy target of a drug addicted child doing what bad children of successful men do...live off their last name) or are GOP elected officials are too stupid to get actual evidence on their own?
Which is it?
Kingfish, I think you’re great at keeping up with the news and appreciate your page.
Could you keep up with what’s being done to hold the sheriff accountable for us and offer updates?
Thanks for all you do
Following up on 11:12 (and bypassing 11:12's demand to admit to either corruption, or to stupidity):
I think the corrupt believe everyone else is at least as corrupt as they are. Few will actually believe they are worse than others, and an echo chamber becomes a race to the bottom.
A recent example is the welfare funds scandal. Based on publicized communications from that time period, none of those involved seemed to think they were doing anything too terribly wrong.
So, when someone assumes the worst of others, I think it's often a reflection of that person's own character. Point 2: One-party rule just about guarantees public corruption.
8:08 I think the high sheriff will spend the next four years doing anything but exacting revenge on people.
5:02 PM, think again. He has not slowed down at all. If possible he has become bolder and more open. Maybe it is because he thinks he can do what he wants just because he hasn't been given any reason to believe he is wrong. As long as he stays on the job he will continue to think he can do anything.
If nothing else, maybe all this excess baggage with save us from the specter of "Gov. Bryan Bailey."
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