GRUETLI-LAAGER, Tenn. – Former Grundy County school superintendent Joe Nunley says the TBI falsified a confession in 2003 to prevent him from seeking a retrial in his 2004 assault conviction and to make its case in an unrelated attempted-bribery investigation.
Nunley held a news conference Friday at the Gruetli-Laager Community Center announcing he was calling for a federal investigation in a letter he mailed Friday to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chattanooga.
He wants federal authorities to investigate “the events that led up to, surround and culminated with the creation of this fraudulent document,” he said.
He said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s document was “fabricated” to support the bribery charge and as an “instrument of coercion.”
“I was presented with the decision to make that if I would drop my efforts to seek a retrial, then the state would drop the attempted-bribery indictment,” he said. “I knew they had my false confession, my credibility was in the gutter and I felt it was the only thing that I could do.”