Alabama sheriffs' tendency to steal jail-food funds and boost their own bottom lines can leave inmates with health concerns that last long after they are released

A food tray from the Etowah County (AL) Jail

We invite you to check out the photo above of a food tray from the jail in Etowah County, Alabama. I spent five months -- from Oct. 23, 2013 to March 26, 2014 -- in the Shelby County (AL) Jail, and the tray of food above looks a lot like what we tended to have there.

Since my release, we've seen widespread reports of Alabama sheriffs taking funds intended for inmate food and using them for personal expenses and projects -- such as beach houses, in the case of former Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin, who lost his re-election bid and stepped down last month.

Exposure to Alabama jail food can be dangerous -- both due to its sparse quantity and its dreadful quality. I have reason to worry about the impact it has had on my own health.

As for Todd Entrekin -- the poster boy for Alabama sheriff corruption -- he is not the only one to essentially starve inmates, so that his personal bottom line would benefit. Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson recently sued outgoing Sheriff Ana Franklin, alleging she used inmate-food funds to pay her legal expenses from battling corruption charges.

That's not the only food-related scam involving Alabama sheriffs. I have little doubt a normal-sized adult could starve in an Alabama jail; I lost 15-25 pounds in five months -- and not being a picky eater, I usually cleaned my plate, what little was on it. As you can see from the photo above, there wasn't much on it much of the time.

Also, you can check out my mugshot (below, left) from the night I entered the Shelby County Jail and another (bottom) after I spent about a week at the Jefferson County Jail, which was near the end of my overall five-month incarceration. You can see that the fullness in my face is pretty much gone, and my shoulders look shrunken. Do people suffer in jail? Can this kind of weight loss under the extreme stress of false criminal charges affect a person's health down the road?I think the answer is obvious, and something close to starvation is not out of the question.

In order to survive, many inmates while I was in jail would have family put money in an account for the "store" or "commissary" and use that for snacks. The Morgan County Whistleblower blog has reported on this double-dipping scam, and we borrowed from their commentary in a recent Legal Schnauzer post:

. . . as you walk into the doors of the jail you immediately have access to two machines, the first is so you can put money into their account so they can buy items from the jail including food. This seems like a racket to me; first, you don’t feed them adequately and then sell them overpriced food all the while getting rich off leftover jail food money. Next to the first money machine is another money machine to put money into an account so they can use the phones.

We will not address the jail-phone scam for now. But there is an element to the jail-food scam that you likely would only know if you have been in an Alabama jail -- as I have. And it goes beyond quantity of food and isn't even seen on a tray.

Roger Shuler Mugshot No. 1

The choices on an Alabama jail "commissary" list are a nutritional nightmare. While the regular meal trays are filled with food that appears to be extremely starchy, high in carbs and sodium, the "store" list contains almost all junk food. And by junk food, I mean sweets -- as in snack cakes and pies, candy, etc.

Up until the night I was "arrested for blogging," I had been fortunate to enjoy pretty good health -- and so had my wife, Carol. But I'm not so sure that is still the case. Having been exposed to jail food for five months -- not to mention a wrongful foreclosure in Alabama, an unlawful eviction in Missouri (plus the accompanying financial stress), and the emotional strain of watching Missouri cops beat Carol and break her arm, then bring bogus "assault" charges against her, the victim of an assault -- I suspect one or two of my key health numbers are outside the normal range now. I know Carol has at least one key number that no longer is within normal.

Having someone cheated out of his job and health insurance, along with his freedom and the roof over his head, can come with health consequences for the victim and his spouse. That's one of many reasons why it is a stupid thing to do.

If we wind up with a negative health event, or dealing with a chronic, life-altering illness -- all because Alabama political thugs did not like the content of my blog -- someone is going to have hell to pay. There will be major legal liability, and we intend to make sure that dealing with that is going to be painful.


(Note: Legal Schnauzer needs your help. Loyal readers have sustained this blog for years, and support is urgently needed now that my wife, Carol, is recovering from a fainting spell, which led to a recent broken arm. The healing process is going well for Carol, but statements from her doctors indicate this likely was fallout from political thugs cheating both of us out of our jobs [and health insurance] in Birmingham -- and the stress of dealing with financial wreckage that comes from being targeted for right-wing attacks. If you are able to help along our journalism journey, please click on the yellow donate button in the upper right corner of the blog, under the "Support the Schnauzer" headline. We are deeply grateful for your support through the years.)

Roger Shuler Mugshot No. 2

Alabama's crooked system of starving inmates so that sheriffs can use the money for personal expenses finally is being exposed for the whole nation to see

Outgoing Moran Sheriff Ana Franklin
(Decatur Daily)

An Alabama prosecutor is suing his county sheriff for using funds intended for feeding jail inmates to pay her own legal fees. In another sign that nontraditional journalism has immense value, a groundbreaking blog puts the important (and largely unseen) issue in perspective.

Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson filed a lawsuit on December 21 seeking to recover funds outgoing Sheriff Ana Franklin allegedly had used for personal expenses. William Gray of Birmingham, one of Franklin's attorneys, said the sheriff used surplus jail-food money to pay lawyers who helped negotiate a deal with federal prosecutors that recently ended with Franklin pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for willful failure to file a tax return. From an article by Eric Fleischauer, of the Decatur Daily:

Some money originally earmarked for feeding Morgan County jail inmates has gone to pay lawyers for Sheriff Ana Franklin, one of her attorneys said.

The legal expenses may be part of at least $105,000 in jail-food money that Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson alleges the sheriff has taken or spent.

Anderson [on Dec. 21] filed a civil lawsuit against Franklin alleging she has illegally kept and spent state-issued jail food money that she should have been holding in trust exclusively for the feeding of inmates.

This issue has particular resonance here at Legal Schnauzer since I spent more than five months in an Alabama jail (Shelby County) in 2013-14 for reporting on state legal and political corruption, mostly among Republicans. I became the only U.S. journalist to be incarcerated since 2006 and probably the only American in history to essentially be "arrested for blogging," due to a preliminary injunction that has been an unlawful "prior restraint" under more than 200 years of First Amendment law.

I know what it's like to eat Alabama jail food; I survived on it for more than five months. Since then, we've learned that Alabama sheriffs make it a practice to pocket money intended for jail food and use it for their own purposes. That issue first hit the press in early 2018 when former Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin was found to have pocketed $750,000 in jail-food funds and used most of the money to purchase a beach house in north Florida.

A recent report at al.com shows Entrekin, who lost his bid for re-election, made more than $1.5 million from funds that were supposed to be used for feeding federal immigration detainees at the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden.

Morgan County Prosecuting Attorney Scott Anderson
(Decatur Daily)

Here is the equation for Entrekin, Franklin, and other sticky-fingered Alabama sheriffs: The less money you spend on feeding inmates, the more money you will have for your own ventures. The headline on this post might as well be "Alabama sheriffs live in high style by starving inmates." I once was one of those starving inmates; I lost 25 pounds during my five months in jail, and it would have been worse if I had not had resources to take one of the few survival options available to Alabama inmates.

Morgan County Whistle Blower, a ground-breaking blog that has broken one story after another in the Ana Franklin scandal, summarized Alabama's inmate-food crisis in a Dec. 23 post that focused on the Lawrence County Jail:

Folks these jails have become all about the almighty dollar. They are no longer about corrections or punishment. They are about how much money can we make off the inmates and their families or loved ones.

In Lawrence County, if you bond someone out of jail they now charge a $35.00 jail processing fee. Not sure where this money goes or what it is used for or who gets it. Not sure what the purpose of this fee is since in Lawrence County everyone who is arrested or gets a ticket when paying their fine and court costs pays a $35.00 jail fee. This fee is to pay for the construction of the current jail which is 20 years old. Just another burden added to the families for the money maker. This applies to property bonds and bail bondsmen but the $35.00 is separate from what you have to pay the bondsman and must be paid by the person making the bonds. I think this is a clear case of double dipping. The $35.00 jail fee is being paid twice.

As if that is not bad enough as soon as you walk into the doors of the jail you immediately have access to two machines, the first is so you can put money into their account so they can buy items from the jail including food. This seems like a racket to me; first, you don’t feed them adequately and then sell them overpriced food all the while getting rich off leftover jail food money. Next to the first money machine is another money machine to put money into an account so they can use the phones.

These things put a burden on the families, many of whom are already struggling financially. The phones they can do without but when a loved one calls and says they are hungry and it has been well documented they are not being fed properly by these greedy sheriffs it is hard to not rake and scrape and come up with money for them to buy something to eat.

This whole operation just seems to swirl around how we can make money off people who are in jail and contrary to popular belief most are not hardened criminals like the sheriff portrays them. The food is about like this jail processing fee, it all seems like double dipping to me, getting money from the State for food and then getting money from the inmates for food.

The operations of the Sheriff's Department has gone from one of law enforcement to one with multiple systems within the organization that is totally focused on making money.

That is very well stated, and the highlighted portion particularly hits home because I lived under those conditions for five months. I can add one point to this, and I know about it only because I've experienced it firsthand. Bottom line: An inmate does not suffer from Alabama's crooked jail-food system only while he's incarcerated; its impact can stay with him long after he has been set free.


(To be continued)

Alabama sheriff who pocketed inmate food funds and bought beach house was appointed by (surprise!) Bob Riley and designated a "rising Republican star"

Todd Entrekin

An Alabama sheriff who pocketed $750,000 in inmate food funds and bought a $740,000 beach house was appointed to his position in 2007 by former Gov. Bob Riley. That should come as no surprise, given the Riley family's penchant for self-enrichment.

Todd Entrekin, Etowah County sheriff, has become a national punchline as the mainstream press has picked up on his outrageously greedy scheme. This is the same Entrekin whom the Alabama Republic Party, in 2013, named a "rising Republican star." From the ALGOP press release:

Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin is this week’s Rising Republican Star. Sheriff Entrekin has brought a wealth of experience and a vision to the Sheriff’s office of Etowah County. He became Sheriff of Etowah in 2007, when Governor Bob Riley appointed him after the passing of Sheriff James Hayes, but Todd’s career in law enforcement began long before that. . . .

Since his appointment in 2007, Sheriff Entrekin set several benchmarks for the department to reach and all of those benchmarks have already been accomplished.

It sounds like Entrekin's No. 1 benchmark was to line his own pockets -- and he certainly has accomplished that. In perhaps the finest piece of journalism to come from al.com in the 2000s, Connor Sheets reports:

In September, Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin and his wife Karen purchased an orange four-bedroom house with an in-ground pool and canal access in an upscale section of Orange Beach for $740,000.

To finance the purchase, Entrekin got a $592,000 mortgage from Peoples Bank of Alabama, according to public real estate records. The home is one of several properties with a total assessed value of more than $1.7 million that the couple own together or separately in Etowah and Baldwin counties.

Some Etowah County residents question how a county sheriff making a five-figure annual salary can afford to own multiple houses, including one worth nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

But ethics disclosure forms Entrekin filed with the state reveal that over the past three years he has received more than $750,000 worth of additional "compensation" from a source he identified as "Food Provisions."

Entrekin did not deny that he received the money when asked about it via email last week. Ethics forms he filed in previous years do not list any income from such a source.

To prove he does not lack for audacity, Entrekin actually tried to defend his actions -- seemingly drawing even more attention from the national press. Consider this, from Fox News:

Entrekin like other Alabama sheriffs believe a pre-World War II state law allows them to keep any “excess inmate-feeding funds” for themselves. However, in counties such as Jefferson and Montgomery, any excess money is supposed to be given to the county government.

In forms filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission, Entrekin reported he made “more than $250,000 each of the past three years via the inmate-feeding funds.”

Radley Balko, at The Washington Post, wrote about the scheme with a sense of disbelief, given that Entrekin has an annual salary of $92,000:

[Entrekin's] response when contacted for the story is priceless:

“As you should be aware, Alabama law is clear as to my personal financial responsibilities in the feeding of inmates. Regardless of one’s opinion of this statute, until the legislature acts otherwise, the Sheriff must follow the current law.”

So he had no choice, you see. He didn’t want to do it, but his hands were tied! He was bound by law to use funds designated for inmate meals to purchase beach homes for he and his wife. Just part of the sacrifice one makes for a career in public service.

The New York Daily News, referring to Entrekin as a "leech," focused on the political opposition that Entrekin's sticky fingers are attracting:

"I believe the funds belong to the taxpayers and any excess funds should go toward things that benefit the taxpayer," said Rainbow City Police Chief Jonathon Horton.

A former member of the Etowah County Sheriff's Office, Horton is running against Entrekin in this year's race for sheriff.

Said Horton, "There's been a tremendous amount of money left over that shouldn't be used as a bonus check."

At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum reports that "Alabama sheriffs are living large":

Let’s tear our gaze away from the swamp in Washington DC and check in on the swamp of Etowah County in Alabama. Todd Entrekin, the sheriff there, just bought a vacation home for $740,000, bringing his total real estate empire to $1.7 million. Where did the money come from?

Ethics disclosure forms Entrekin filed with the state reveal that over the past three years he has received more than $750,000 worth of additional “compensation” from a source he identified as “Food Provisions.”

Fascinating. Can you tell us more . . . ?

Entrekin told AL.com last month that he has a personal account that he refers to as his “Food Provision” fund. And Etowah County resident Matthew Qualls said that in 2015 Entrekin paid him to mow his lawn via checks with the words “Sheriff Todd Entrekin Food Provision Account” printed in the upper-left corner. AL.com viewed a photograph of one such check.

Drum seemed just a tad incredulous at all of this:

Apparently the state of Alabama makes the sheriff personally responsible for everything related to food in the jails he operates. They give him a lump sum, and he gets to keep anything left over. You know, sort of a good ol’ boy slush fund that’s managed to survive all the way into the 21st century.

But as much as I’d like to be outraged, this kind of penny-ante corruption is actually sort of soothing compared to what’s happening in DC. It just goes to show that when rural folks complain that “the America I know” is slipping away, they’re not seeing the whole picture. In Alabama, at least, it’s still going strong.