The Sheriff, His Girlfriend and His Illegal Subpoenas
Powerful figures in Mississippi, including the attorney general, two judges and a future congressman, learned how a sheriff lied to spy on his girlfriend. They all kept his secret.
....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 yearslong 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.