Ex-DeKalb chief calls probe ‘Mickey Mouse’

Former DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton called an investigation claiming he tried to hide confiscated luxury cars and misused comp time “much ado about nothing.”

A DeKalb County Sheriff’s office report alleges that Bolton had documents falsified to hide a $32,000 Range Rover and a $55,000 Mercedes he kept for his personal use.

AJC file

Former DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton.

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In addition, investigators say, the former chief took nearly two months of unapproved comp time.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has requested the February investigation results through the Georgia Open Records Act, but a copy was published Monday on blogger Jim Walls’ Web site Atlanta Unfiltered.

The 53-page report showed interviews with about a dozen police employees, including several deputy and assistant chiefs.

Bolton, reached by phone Tuesday evening as he boarded a plane from Atlanta to Dallas, called the report “Mickey Mouse,” and said the Sheriff’s department violated his rights.

“I never had a chance to address any of those issues before this report was written,” he said. “The report is much ado about nothing. It’s the culmination of a witch hunt.”

According to the report, a police car pool officer named Tip Green told sheriff’s investigators that Bolton told him to “hide” the luxury vehicles.

“Bolton said to hide them, and he did not want them showing up in his cost center,” Green said to investigators when asked whether Bolton instructed him to falsify records.

Assistant Police Chief Karen Anderson told investigators on Feb. 16 that in late 2008, she warned Bolton about keeping the luxury cars.

“You should not have these vehicles,” she said in the investigative report, saying she told Bolton keeping the vehicles was against federal law.

DeKalb Chief Executive Burrell Ellis fired Bolton in February after a lengthy investigation and accusations that Bolton misused county property and overused compensatory time.

Bolton, a contract employee for the county, is appealing his firing.

“Ninety percent of the things we did were all approved by the CEO,” Bolton said Tuesday evening, referring to former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, who hired him.

Another part of the report showed that Bolton submitted reports showing 448 hours, or 56 days, of unapproved compensatory time from September 2007 to this past December.

When asked previously about his use of comp time, Bolton said that Jones had approved his time off.

Jones’ chief of staff Ann Kimbrough had approved roughly 24 comp days between February and August 2007, according to the investigation.

But in a note dated Oct. 23, 2007, that was attached to one of Bolton’s requests, Kimbrough said, “I am no longer signing these for the chief.”

But Bolton was confident that he would win some degree of reprieve from the county.

“Whether it’s through the appeals process or Federal court, we’re going to get justice,” he said.