Sheriff hopes April will be the month

Oconee Sheriff Mike Crenshaw is hopeful April will be the month that he is able to finish his investigation of the one-half million dollars worth of drug money that went missing from the Sheriff’s Office over a two-year period that began six years ago. By completing his investigation, which amounts to a new look at the case, Crenshaw intends to make public his findings—a promise he made when he ran for the office in 2012. And one officer told us that he’s hopeful the outcome will allow the Sheriff’s Office to move forward. As to where he is in his re-look at the case, Crenshaw told 96.3/WGOG NEWS: “I have about three more interviews. I am hoping for (the finish) some time in April.” A former Sheriff’s Office manager pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 2010 and was sentenced to a year and a half in prison. Kathleen Taylor was ordered to make restitution, though defense attorney Julian Stoudemire said from what he could tell none of the missing money was left and there’s no way his client could repay all of it. As a captain with the Sheriff’s Office, Crenshaw became suspicious about whether the money in the office drug account was being handled properly and reported his suspicions to his superiors who started the original investigation. Though that investigation had an ending in an Oconee courtroom in 2010, some members of the public were left unsettled and their dissatisfaction became one of the many issues in the campaign for Sheriff for two years later.