JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) – The Jefferson County Personnel Board voted Tuesday to reinstate Jefferson Co. Sheriff’s Sgt. Jude Washington to his job in the department, overturning his firing.
A hearing officer in June recommend Washington be reinstated after serving a 45-day suspension for violating department policies and completing an ethics review course, a recommendation the Personnel Board accepted Tuesday.
The hearing officer found the sheriff’s office “met its burden of proof with respect to evidence presented and witness testimonies supporting the policy and procedure violations charged against Washington. The complainant essentially admitted his guilt after a series of less than truthful interviews and a failed polygraph test.”
Washington, the husband of Lynneice Washington, Jefferson County District Attorney for the Bessemer Cutoff, was fired in January when the sheriff’s office accused him of visiting a federal prisoner in Atlanta as part of a drug investigation. Washington had been assigned to a federal drug task force for several years. According to the records, the inmate Washington was talking to mentioned he had made money in bingo, and referred to someone who worked for their operation. The records say Washington told this defendant he wasn’t interested in bingo because his wife, District Attorney Lynneice Washington, had received criticism from people involved with bingo, and the defendant replied that someone whose name is redacted in the report, believed Lynneice Washington was responsible for shutting down bingo parlors in parts of Jefferson County.
For context, Sheriff Pettway’s brother Bruce Pettway is a businessman who sued Attorney General Steve Marshall in 2022 claiming he was unfairly targeted when Marshall seized money from a bank account belonging to Bruce Pettway.
The record claims Jude Washington later failed part of a polygraph when asked if Sheriff Pettway was mentioned in the drug case interview and Washington said no, but later admitted that the conversation about Pettway and the bingo issue took about 20 seconds and then was dead.
As we reported in 2019, Marshall returned most of the money seized after a federal judge ruled a lawsuit by Bruce Pettway could proceed. Bruce Pettway and his attorney U.W. Clemon suggested Pettway was a victim of civil asset forfeiture gone wrong.
In his response, Washington said in part: “Over the past several months I have been subjected to harassment and retaliation by this department. I broke no rules, I did not violate any policies.”
He later says about that jailhouse interview: “I did not seek out that information, I was not interested in that information, and I did not follow up on that information, which involved a relative of the sheriff but had no bearing on the investigation I was conducting. I reported this information as a matter of course, but let me emphasize that I did not do so in a manner that would have prompted myself or others to conduct an inquiry into the Sheriff or his relatives.”
“However, the mere fact that the subject of my jailhouse interview made unsolicited comments to me about the Sheriff and his family sparked an internal affairs investigation into my performance….the magnitude of the retaliation against me for having heard those unsolicited allegations is both enormous and entirely improper. I broke no rules, I violated no policies, yet my 18-year career lies in ruins, subjected to unjust retaliation and harassment through no fault of my own.”
The hearing officer’s report says “It should be noted that potentially so much damage has been done to the professional relationships that complainant (Washington) and/or peers and subordinates may find it impossible to foster relationships conducive to a positive work environment.
If complainant’s job is reinstated, it needs to be noted that building trust is difficult. It becomes more of a daunting task and potentially not attainable. In which case, the complainant should be given the opportunity to resign.”
We reached out to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, who told us they don’t comment on personnel matters.
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