Two former Hall County Sheriff’s Office employees entered guilty pleas Tuesday in separate drug-related corruption cases.
According to information released by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta, David M. Treadwell, 33, was a Hall County sheriff's deputy when he "accepted $200 or $300 on five occasions from a person he believed was a drug dealer." In exchange for the money, Treadwell agreed to tip off the drug dealer if he was under investigation by Hall County authorities, officials said.
Treadwell’s actions reportedly took place in late 2014.
Also pleading guilty Tuesday was 19-year-old Austin Herring. According to officials, Herring was a jailer for the Hall County Sheriff's Office when he "was paid $500 on two occasions to take a package he was told contained cocaine to an inmate inside the jail."
Herring was reportedly told both packages contained cocaine from Mexico. The packages did not, however, contain drugs, and the inmate was working with investigators.
Herring’s actions took place in February, officials said.
“Both of these defendants breached the trust of the people of Hall County by taking actions that — had they occurred outside the context of an undercover investigation — could have endangered others or permitted other crimes to occur,”acting U.S. Attorney John A. Horn said in a statement. “Each defendant has now forfeited his career in law enforcement, and could face prison as a result of his corrupt actions.”
Both defendants will be sentenced at a later date.
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