DEKALB COUNTY: Probe ‘much ado about nothing,’ Bolton says

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 Bolton had documents falsified to hide a $32,000 Range Rover and a $55,000 Mercedes he kept for his personal use. In addition, investigators say, the former chief took nearly two months of unapproved comp time.

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 Office violated his rights.

“I never had a chance to address any of those issues before this report was written,” he said.

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.

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 … he did not want them showing up in his cost center,” Green told investigators.

Assistant police Chief Karen Anderson told investigators on Feb. 16 that in late 2008, she warned Bolton that 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.

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

Another part of the report showed that Bolton recorded 448 hours, or 56 days, of unapproved compensatory time from September 2007 to this past December. Bolton previously said that former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones had approved his comp time.

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.”