Oconee County Cannot Trust Its Government

A System Designed to Protect Itself

Here, we examine seven stories from the Oconee News archives—stories that name names, document profound injustice and expose a system protected by the county and its actors. The reality of Oconee County has become so absurd that almost any allegation begins to sound believable. I investigated these stories firsthand, stood beside the people harmed and personally paid the price for confronting those who abuse public power. The question is no longer whether the system has failed. The question is: How are we going to hold these tyrants accountable?

Every week, people contact me with stories from Oconee County and beyond. They tell me their property disappeared after entering government custody. They tell me their families were defrauded by the probate court, guardians, conservators, DSS workers, deputies, lawyers and judges. They send money to inmates that is never distributed.

They tell me about homes and property taken through forfeiture and later sold to state actors at prices that make no sense. These are supposedly “public” auctions, yet the public often never knows they are happening. Government officials appear to live far beyond their salaries, while insiders always seem to arrive at the right place, at the right time, with the right information.

People send me names, dates, court cases and stories. Many of these claims could be investigated through public-records requests, but every request costs money, and I am always left knowing that the most important documents are missing.

I have found Corporal Jimmy Watt, the Public Information Officer for the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, to be very good at his job—that is, if his job is to cover up wrongdoing by public officials. The man has no shame. He will deny public records, ignore requests and simply disappear when he does not like the line of questioning.

Some of the people who contact me are terrified because they believe they are being persecuted and pursued by police and other government actors. Of course, that is the cost of pursuing justice in Oconee County. Truth is tyranny in an empire of lies.

I witnessed this firsthand when Captain Jimmy Dixon and Investigator Berry Owens came to my house while off duty on March 14, 2024, at approximately 11:50 a.m., threatening my family. They left no record of their visit. I battled for months before receiving a vague report bearing the wrong date. They are fortunate to have Jimmy Watt and Sheriff Mike Crenshaw covering for them. They are fortunate to have a county council and legal system designed to protect state actors. That case is now in federal court.

It makes perfect sense that citizens of Oconee County are afraid to speak publicly about the truth. In Oconee County, there are consequences for telling the truth, and plenty of people can testify to that.

That is exactly how a corrupt system survives.

“The system” does not need to disprove every accusation. It only needs to exhaust the people asking questions while keeping the truth buried. The extraordinary lengths officials go to hide the records is the evidence that there is something worth hiding. This governments of Oconee are not for the people.

This system only survives because we have been trained to behave like sheep while the wolves wander the land, too fat from feeding on the public to run.

If we are going to save this country, we can begin by cleaning up our own backyards. Left, right, up or down—whichever direction you lean, government corruption is not a partisan issue.

Government transparency and accountability should be the line upon which we all agree. No citizen should be forced to run a gauntlet of obstacles designed to protect the state just to receive justice.

When a public official hides public information, that official should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. We are not talking about private citizens protected by constitutional rights. We are talking about public servants conducting public business. They have no greater claim to privacy than an employee using a company phone while on the clock.

The government works for the people. It is our responsibility to ask questions, and it is the government’s responsibility to answer them, administer justice and provide enough transparency to prevent both fraud and the reasonable appearance of fraud.

Transparency does not merely expose corruption after the fact. It prevents corruption by reminding public servants that they are accountable to the public—not protected from it.

This is how Oconee County became rotten. The county remained riddled with card-carrying KKK members into the 1990s. Eventually, they learned that their views could not survive in public, so they hid them. Their beliefs disappeared from public view, but they did not go away. That became the operating principle of Oconee County: hide what cannot be defended.

Without transparency and accountability, there is no way to know whom to trust or who is illegally profiting from public power. The corrupt have no reason to fear exposure, while honest public servants have no way to distinguish themselves from the people standing beside them.

What have we done?

The Stories That Make the Rumors Believable

If Oconee County officials want to understand why people believe extraordinary stories about government corruption, they should stop blaming social media and examine the government that created the distrust.

People do not lose faith in public institutions all at once. It happens one missing gun, one hidden record, one protected official and one destroyed family at a time.

Consider John Towery, a former Oconee County deputy and school-resource officer who was sentenced in federal court for participating in a child-sex-trafficking conspiracy. A man entrusted with a badge and access to children was involved in trafficking them.

Towery spent his sentence under house arrest in Oconee County. Sheriff Mike Crenshaw publicly proclaimed that Towery never brought the girls into Oconee County, yet federal records indicate otherwise.

It is difficult to believe that this operation existed without customers, assistance or protection in Oconee County. Who else was involved, and why has there never been a complete public accounting?

That should have triggered a complete public examination of the institutions that hired, supervised and trusted him. Those supervising need to come forth and make a clear stament about how this came to be.

Look at the story of Leslie Dockins and the Estate of David Dockins.

David Dockins’s firearms entered Oconee County Sherrif’s Department custody and, after his death, the Probate Court ordered them released to his estate. The court ordered it, and the law required it.

When Leslie Dockins attempted to recover the property, she was told that the Sheriff’s Office had the guns but would not release them. Officials raised vague concerns about safety, even though Leslie had no criminal record. They then attempted to claim that the firearms did not belong to David, but Leslie produced ownership records and the Sheriff’s Office’s own inventory identifying the guns.

People inside Oconee County Sheriff’s office stole the guns and have zero shame about it. The system is designed to protect these thieves.

After years of excuses and obstruction, Captain Kenneth “Ken” Washington finally wore Leslie down and convinced her to stop asking questions. The dispute was never resolved, the missing firearms were never properly returned to their rightful owner and no one inside the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office was held responsible.

A court ordered the property released. The law demanded its return. Oconee County simply refused. Oconee County views the law as an “us” versus “them” game, and we are “them”.

This should have been easy to resolve. Guns have serial numbers. If Oconee had any interest in holding these criminals accountable, they would be in jail. Stealing a gun is a felony.

I watched the same culture turn against my wife.

Dorothy returned from Uganda to find her office, factory, storefront and warehouse ransacked. Property had been removed or destroyed.

Employees of Clements Electrical admitted to the Seneca Police to taking the items, claiming there was an outstanding debt. Yet they could not produce evidence of any delinquent debt—only bills that were not yet due. Apparently, in Seneca, if you know the cops, you can claim someone owes you money and steal their stuff with no consequences.

That is right. Clements Electrical employees admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars in property during a renegade attempt to collect a debt that never existed. They admitted that exact story to Seneca police, yet Investigator Mike Teramano and Chief Casey Bowling ran to their defense.

It must be nice to grow up in a small town where the police are your friends. It probably did not help that Dorothy was an African woman in a town run by wealthy, older Southern white men.

The police did everything in their power to protect their friends in a system designed for exactly that purpose. It worked so well not only because Teramano and Bowling were on the case, but because they were well practiced in the craft of corruption and malice.

The civil case was overseen by judges of the Tenth Judicial Circuit, led by Judge R. Lawton McIntosh. Clements arrived with a team of high-priced lawyers, while Dorothy fought to defend herself. It was quite a spectacle: an African woman standing alone against the injustice of a corrupt Southern court system. There are too many highlights to be shared here now.

After years of litigation designed to win a war of attrition, the merits of the case were never meaningfully considered. Instead, procedural traps ultimately decided the outcome. The final nails were driven into the coffin after Dorothy hired local attorney Ashley Boatwright, who agreed to false claims advanced by Clements’s lawyers that effectively ended her case. From Dorothy’s perspective, the lawyer she hired to protect her had sold her out. I suspect that he took money from the opposing council. He was disbarred since then for other crimes.

Again, we are in the “them” category looking for justice to be delivered by the hands of “us”.

The cases involving Jason Alderman and Jaime Mamian Motta demonstrate how differently that system can treat people depending upon who they are.

Alderman was the chief prosecutor for Oconee County and is now the Oconee County chief public defender. He has a habit of getting drunk and firing guns outside his neighborhood home, alarming his neighbors and family, yet Oconee County deputies protected him and even referred to him as “my boss” when question by a local waitress about his behavior.

When I visited Alderman’s home, Alderman had been shotting, was suspected of being drunk and was hiding inside his house with the lights off while Oconee County Sheriff’s deputies sat outside in their patrol cars waiting. This was at least the fourth time the Sherif was called to his house for this exact same behavior with the exact same result: he hides. Must be nice to be the boss of the cops.

My reporting on the Chattooga River Lodge incident was based on security video showing Alderman intoxicated and clearly acting as the aggressor. He assaulted several people, including a 19-year-old, a woman and a man he punched in the face, knocking out one of his teeth. He then contacted his victim and threatened state retaliation if they pursued justice. He promised to pay the dental bill, but never did.

After years of protection, Alderman was finally forced to resign as a solicitor. But do not feel too sorry for him. He was quickly hired as the chief public defender in the same town. They cannot let him go. He knows where too many bodies are buried.

In contrast to Alderman, Jaime Motta was arrested on the word of a woman with no corroborating evidence and a preponderance of evidence pointing toward his innocence. He was then held in the Oconee County Detention Center for more than two years without so much as an evidentiary hearing, all while under Alderman’s thumb.

The contrast could not be more stark. This system is designed to protect outright criminals like Alderman while persecuting the vulnerable who cannot defend themselves.

Motta remained jailed for years while refusing to plead guilty to a crime he maintained he did not commit. He eventually went to trial—a trial that was an embarrassment to the Oconee County Solicitors office and the West Union Police—and was acquitted of all charges.

A culture of accountability would require prosecutors and judges to explain why an unconvicted man remained incarcerated for years. Motta’s rights were blatantly stripped away by this perverse system of justice, yet there was no effort to learn from what happened or hold anyone accountable. The public is left to believe that justice in Oconee County depends less upon what someone did than upon whom he knows.

The story of James Bartee, Nick Blackwell and Michael “Mikey” Sane Barnes reaches even deeper because it involves a killing, a criminal prosecution and a fraudulent election for sheriff. The sheriff in this system must be handpicked, or the system of corruption would collapse.

Before the Sheriff’s race began, Blackwell shot and killed Barnes and claimed self-defense. There are reports that the first officer on the scene was James Singleton, the Oconee County sheriff at the time. Many say Singleton planted the gun on Barnes. Unfortunately, that is believable in Oconee County, where Blackwell—an active informant—was needed by the state. The investigation into the death of Barnes was active during the Sheriff’s race.

Blackwell accused sheriff candidate Donnie Fricks of attacking him after Blackwell distributed flyers intended to damage Fricks’s reputation. Although police found no basis to charge Fricks, no surprise, the accusation disrupted and further tainted his campaign.

Blackwell later became the central informant in the case against James Bartee, a former Secret Service agent campaigning for sheriff on promises to confront corruption and reform forfeiture practices—a stance intolerable to those who had everything to lose, including James Singleton himself

Blackwell recorded conversations with James Bartee that initially appeared to go nowhere. Yet those recordings became the foundation of a prosecution that removed Bartee from the sheriff’s race and eventually sent him to prison. Judge R. Lawton McIntosh presided over the case. After investigating Oconee County for several years, I remain astounded by how often McIntosh’s name arises in conversations and allegations involving corruption and abuse of judicial power. Bartee was later pardoned.

An accountable system would never allow local political interests, a homicide investigation and the prosecution of a candidate for sheriff to remain tangled inside the same institutions. Independent investigators and prosecutors should have been involved from the beginning.

Finally, consider David Hammond and his mother, Glenda Lindsey.

David Hammond had already drawn considerable attention in Oconee County for exercising his First Amendment rights and publicizing the conviction of former deputy John Towery.

The first major act of retaliation by the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office was initiated by Corporal Scott McMahan, the school-resource officer assigned to Hammond’s nonverbal autistic son. McMahan claimed that he had a conversation with the 14-year-old boy in which the child reported being abused at home. Hammond secretly recorded the encounter with McMahan, and the evidence is clear. The accusation of abuse was purportedly made by a boy who had never spoken a complete sentence in his life. Through the process of reporting, I spent much time in the home of David Hammond. It is not a traditional home, but it is a clean and caring home. Hamond’s son would say “I love you”, but not in a way that I was able to understand.

His mother, Glenda Lindsey, was 73 when the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office placed her into emergency protective custody and removed her from the home she shared with David, her longtime caregiver, and his nonverbal autistic son. She was later placed at Carlisle Senior Care of Aiken, more than 150 miles from her family, and placed under a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order shortly after entering state-controlled care.

Glenda was of sound mind which is documented in an abundance of videos recorded by Hammond. She insisted, in documents and on video the day she was taken, that David took good care of her and never requested a DNR. She was removed over a bruise on her wrist that came from an IV, yet was later found under state care with infected bedsores, heavily medicated with sedatives and pleading to return to the home she owned with her son.

Deputy T. Chapman, an officer deeply offended by Hammond’s criticism of the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, said—while being recorded by Hammond—that he was placing Glenda into emergency protective custody and would force DSS to “do their jobs.” It is clear that a deputy is not the appropriate decision maker regarding elderly care.

DSS case manager Kisha Ellington later said in a text message that, if it were up to her, Glenda would go home. She is the case manager, if it is not up to her, who is it up to? Lieutenant Price, on a recorded call that I listened to, then claimed the Sheriff’s Office had nothing to do with Glenda’s removal and told David to speak with DSS.

Every attempt to determine how the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office was involved in Glenda’s removal and placement more than 150 miles away was met with a wall of silence from Oconee County DSS director Stephanie Gentry and Sheriff Mike Crenshaw. The agencies worked together when taking control of Glenda, but responsibility disappeared when her family demanded answers.

Since Hammond began recording the Oconee County Sheriff’s officers and demanding accountability of the Sherrif’s office, DSS was sent to David’s home regarding his mother and his son many times. Once he was reported to be living in a cockroach-infested house, which was clearly not true. They also arrived claiming that the woman renting the trailer behind his house was not being fed. Hammond had no responsibility to feed her, yet he was feeding her anyway.

While trying to receive all records from DSS involving Hamond, the Walhalla police threatened to have us trespassed from public property. Why hide if there is nothing to hide? When we finally received the public records after battling administrators and lawyers for weeks, they revealed a total of 14 DSS investigations into Hammond. Not a single one stated who initiated the investigation. Every investigation found that Hammond properly cared for his mother and his son. When they finally took Glenda, there was no investigation and no finding of abuse. That is how it is done ‘round here.

There is a price to pay in Oconee County if you believe the United States Constitution applies to you. Hammond paid the ultimate price; he lost the last years of his mother’s life while she was tortured at the hands of Oconee County.

The story of Ashley Leverett, Marsha Cook and their brother Christopher Cook is not merely another probate dispute. It is the story of a grieving family placed beneath the machinery of the Oconee County Probate Court—and what happened when I, representing OconeeNews.org stood outside the courthouse and forced that machinery into public view.

Chris and his brother Peter had lived with disabilities since a devastating automobile accident in 1991. Their parents cared for them for decades. Then COVID swept through the family. Their mother died in December 2021, and their father died the following month. Chris, still recovering himself, became Peter’s primary caregiver, supported by Marsha and Ashley.

The probate system soon entered their lives. Guardians, conservators and attorneys were appointed. The family says medical evidence supporting Peter’s competency was disregarded while outsiders gained increasing control over his care, money and inheritance. Chris described watching the estate his parents had built to protect their disabled sons being consumed by the very “professionals” appointed to protect them.

Then attorney Carol Anne Johnson, in an astounding example of conflict of interest, acting as trustee and former temporary guardian and conservator, filed a Rule to Show Cause against Christopher, Marsha and Ashley. She accused them of withholding Peter’s disability payments, interfering with visitation and medical care, refusing to produce financial records and preparing to move Peter beyond the court’s jurisdiction. Johnson asked Judge Danny Singleton to hold them in constructive contempt, award her attorney fees and incarcerate them if they did not fall in line.
Contempt is not a harmless administrative label. It places a person’s property and freedom in the hands of the judge. Marsha and Ashley entered the courthouse on September 10, 2024, knowing that the court could fine them, jail them or both.

This case is complicated. At the center of the dispute was an order allegedly based upon an agreement under Rule 43(k). A Rule 43(k) order rests on the claim that the parties actually agreed to its terms, either in a signed writing or in open court and on the record. Oconee County Probate Judge Danny Singleton has a record of invoking Rule 43(k) to impose the court’s will—something the rule was never intended to do.

Marsha Cook and Ashley Leverett maintained that only limited terms had been discussed in court and that additional provisions later appeared in an order they had never accepted. Rule 43(k) exists to prevent precisely this type of dispute: an agreement must be contained in a signed consent order or written stipulation, stated in open court and entered into the record, or reduced to writing and signed by the parties and their attorneys.

Oconee News did not report this story from a safe distance.

At the time of the hearing, I stood across the street from the courthouse holding a sign that read “Investigate the Probate Court” on one side and “Judge Singleton Is Corrupt” on the other. I had already been jailed after criticizing this court. I knew that continuing to expose it could cost me my freedom again.

Judge Singleton came outside and photographed me. Soon afterward, a witness inside the courthouse sent me a message reporting that Deputy Preston Kirby had announced in the probate court lobby, the same lobby I was arrested in, that he would go home, change clothes and return to “whoop my butt.” I called dispatch and reported the threat. By my count, approximately ten Sheriff’s Office vehicles and fourteen officers eventually surrounded the courthouse.

The message was difficult to misunderstand. Two women stood inside facing contempt and possible jail. Outside, the journalist exposing the proceeding was threatened by a deputy, then surrounded by the law-enforcement agency employing him.

And then the contempt hearing disappeared.

Before the day ended, I was informed that the contempt allegations against Marsha and Ashley had been dropped without a hearing. They entered the courthouse facing punishment. After Oconee News placed the proceeding under public scrutiny, I was informed that the contempt allegations had been dropped and the hearing would not take place.

This is far from ordinary or easily explained. A Rule to Show Cause is not a casual piece of paper that can be set aside on a whim. It is a serious accusation that a court order was willfully violated and that the accused may be held in contempt, fined or jailed. Danny Singlton has a habit of handing down jail sentences for the probate bench.

The fact that this contempt hearing disappeared after a protester arrived outside the courthouse raises an unavoidable question: Could the proceeding withstand public scrutiny? If the accusations were legitimate, the evidence sound and the court order valid, why was the hearing suddenly unnecessary?

The sequence itself is evidence that something was seriously wrong with the proceeding. Yet no independent investigation followed. No one was required to explain why the hearing was canceled. No accountability was imposed.

How can that be justified? The public deserves an answer.

The threat against me did not disappear either. A federal judge later ruled that my allegations against Deputy Kirby were sufficient to state a plausible First Amendment retaliation claim, finding that a threat of violence by a deputy could deter an ordinary person from continuing a lawful protest. That was not a final finding that Kirby was liable, but it was a judicial recognition that the allegation could not be dismissed as harmless.

This is what Oconee News was doing while the established press remained silent. We were reading the petitions, examining the orders, standing outside the courthouse and placing our own freedom between frightened citizens and a government accustomed to operating without witnesses.

There is a price to pay in Oconee County when you insist that the Constitution applies to you.

On September 10, 2024, Oconee News paid that price—and Marsha and Ashey went home instead of going to jail.

These are only seven stories.

They are a tiny subset of what I, Jason Boyle, have learned through my own cases, reporting and conversations with people who found nowhere else to turn. I know about Ashley Leverett, Marsha Cook and Christopher Cook and the probate system that gained control over their family. I know the allegations concerning forfeited homes, hidden auctions, insider purchases and deputies acquiring property at prices ordinary citizens never knew were available. I know the longstanding claims that former Sheriff James Singleton accumulated valuable land for himself and his family by leveraging the power of his office.

I know about money sent to inmates that families say was never distributed. I know about court records that appear incomplete, seized property that cannot be accounted for and officials who become unavailable the moment the questions become specific.

Yet it is clear that I know very little compared with everything there is to be known.

For every person who contacts me, many more remain silent. For every missing firearm someone can identify, other property may never have been properly inventoried. For every family willing to challenge DSS, the probate court or the Sheriff’s Office, others have already been exhausted, intimidated or financially destroyed.

What has been lost cannot be measured only in dollars. Children lost safety. Families lost homes, businesses and property. Leslie Dockins lost years searching for serial-numbered guns the government should have been able to locate immediately. Dorothy lost businesses she spent years building. Motta lost nearly two years of freedom before a jury acquitted him. Barnes lost his life. Bartee lost his freedom, reputation and opportunity to stand before the voters. Glenda lost her home, the care of her loving family and ultimately her life. Honest public servants lost the ability to distinguish themselves from those standing beside them because secrecy protects everyone inside the institution equally.

Oconee News Needs Your Help

There is no way forward without trust. When police, courts and prosecutors appear to work together to keep the jails full, while people inside the inner circle walk free and the most vulnerable are treated as sources of profit, how are ordinary citizens supposed to feel safe? A government cannot demand confidence while refusing transparency, protecting its own and punishing those who ask questions. Trust must be earned through truth, accountability and equal justice—or it will not exist at all.

It is the responsibility of Oconee County and every institution operating in its name to rebuild that trust. Citizens should not have to bleed for transparency, sacrifice their livelihoods for accountability or risk their freedom merely to force public servants to obey the law. Is there no leadership in this county willing to step forward? No churches prepared to defend the vulnerable? No deputies or officers with enough integrity to expose wrongdoing within their own ranks? No politicians who are neither bought and sold nor too afraid to speak the truth? Trust will not return through silence. Someone with authority must finally have the courage to stand up.

This is not merely about Oconee News.

We are the public, and this is our government.

Contact us: OconeeNews.org@gmail.com

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Oconee News is dedicated to exposing corruption within the local law enforcement agencies and judicial system.

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