After 16 months and continuing silence in the TBI probe of Sheriff Eric Watson, some Bradley County officials are right to question whether the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is stalling – leaving the county in a bad spot with a chief law enforcement officer already awaiting trial on 12 felony charges related to forging auto titles.
Watson clearly isn’t of a mind to step down on his own, despite controversy after controversy – like the one created in early 2016 when Watson sold off the county’s $130,000 surveillance van for $20,000 to a Nashville bail bondsman.
The former four-term Republican Tennessee state legislator and former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee also has faced a formal complaint of jail bullying. The TBI probe is said to be looking at persistent allegations of credit card misuse, more than $100,000 missing from the jail’s food budget, and other problems in the sheriff’s office.
Did we mention that Watson’s wife is a bail bondsman who reportedly receives a disproportionate number of Bradley County jail bonds and gets help from her husband to reel in bond jumpers?
Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson in his booking photograph when he was charged months ago with forging automobile titles.Imagine the consternation of county commissioners and other officials who have to worry about county liability for a rogue sheriff they can’t fire when he chases down bond jumpers for his wife across state lines in his unmarked sheriff’s vehicle with wife and another bonding agent in tow.