Ray County sheriff let prisoners go free and bring in drugs, MO attorney general says
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is seeking to remove Ray County Sheriff Scott Childers from office, alleging he unlawfully allowed prisoners to leave jail, perform work for friends and acquaintances and smuggle in drugs, alcohol and other contraband.
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday filed a petition for quo warranto – essentially a lawsuit seeking Childers’ removal – in Ray County Circuit Court on Wednesday. A judge later ordered Childers relieved of duties.
Bailey, a Republican, said in a statement on Thursday that as attorney general, it was his duty to hold accountable “those who refuse to do their job” as required by Missouri law.
“To that end, I am moving for the removal of the Ray County Sheriff,” Bailey said.
The extraordinary action by the state attorney general threatens to end Childers’ controversial time in office, which included what had been branded an inmate work program. Childers first won election in 2020 and is running for re-election in the mostly rural county northeast of Kansas City.
The petition suggests Childers’ work program may amount to criminal activity. The court filing indicates the release of inmates without proper approval is a Class D felony under Missouri law.
The petition says Ray County residents who are crime victims “have been subject to needless fear and emotional distress upon seeing the perpetrators of their crimes out of jail and freely walking in public.”
“Respondent has allowed these detainees to drive vehicles, make purchases at local stores, leave the State of Missouri, and generally move about Ray County without proper supervision,” the petition says.
Bailey’s office alleges Childers unlawfully allowed prisoners to leave or be released from jail and stated on social media a plan to use detainees to work at his home or at other businesses. He allowed prisoners to drive vehicles, make purchases at local stores and even leave the state.
Additionally, Bailey’s office alleges that in addition to allowing prisoners to bring in contraband, he allowed conjugal visits and allowed released prisoners to work on his property, along with the property of friends and acquaintances. Childers also received or accepted a benefit in exchange for keeping prisoners in the jail, Bailey’s office says.
Calls to a phone number for Childers and to the Ray County Sheriff’s Office weren’t immediately answered on Thursday.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said it received a request for a criminal investigation of Childers from Bailey. An FBI spokeswoman confirmed Thursday the federal agency was providing assistance to the Missouri State Highway Patrol as part of the investigation.
The petition comes just months after Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick in October released a scathing audit of Ray County, finding that the sheriff’s office lost nearly $3,000 of fees paid to the county and spent thousands more on unapproved purchases including beer, cigarettes, 15 TVs and 76 hams.
The problems found in the audit, which covered 2018 to 2020, dealt with issues that happened before Childers became sheriff — a point he emphasized in an interview with The Star at the time.
Childers told The Star in October that the audit proved what he campaigned on — that the county isn’t operated very well.
“This proves what I said is the truth. There’s money that’s unaccounted for. There’s a lot of problems that it shows — it’s just poor management. And that’s what I kept saying, it wasn’t a good accountability system,” he said at the time. “There was a lot of nepotism in this county, which always breeds for issues.”
Fitzpatrick previously called on Childers to work with the county’s commission and other law enforcement to investigate the money that the office lost during the previous sheriff’s tenure.
Rep. Terry Thompson, a Lexington Republican who represents portions of Ray County, said in a phone call that he learned about the situation involving Childers shortly before noon on Thursday.
“I know that there’s been concerns about him, but I had no idea that this was going to happen,” he said. “I don’t think it’s gonna be good for the community.”
Most of those concerns were personal complaints, Thompson said. Constituents have called him complaining that Childers “was constantly on Facebook and all this kind of stuff.”
But he also said there were complaints about the way Childers dealt with prisoners.
“They were walking around the county and stuff,” he said. “A lot of people were concerned.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2024 at 2:56 PM.
