DA: Removing Jackson Clerk From Office Most Important

Removing a former Jackson County Clerk from office was a higher priority than punishing her financial misdeeds.

That’s according to Assistant District Attorney Ian Bratton. Bratton prosecuted the Amanda Stafford. Bratton said he wanted to secure a conviction before the August election because of a little know provision of state law.

“One of the odd things about elections is if you are charged with ouster, but are yet to be ousted, if you are elected to the same position again, it wipes the ouster away,” Bratton said. “There’s case law going back about hundred years, but the basic concept is the voters were aware, and they chose her anyway.”

But with two felonies on her record, Britton said Stafford will be ineligible to run for office again.

“One of my goals was, and of course we have elections coming up, I did not want to risk this taking too long,” Bratton said. “I wanted to make sure she was convicted and unable to run again immediately.”

Since the Clerk’s Office was poorly operated, according to Bratton, it was difficult to build a solid case against Stafford. By accepting a plea bargain, Bratton said the process of Stafford’s removal was expedited.

“If we had gone to grand jury,” Bratton said, “it would have probably conceivably taken a couple of years to get her fully prosecuted. One year to two years in a Circuit-level case is pretty standard. Until she is convicted, she’s not a felon, which means she can actually run for office again.”

Bratton said the original charge was for two class-C felony thefts, which was pleaded down to a class-D felony.

Stafford pleaded guilty in May to two counts of theft over $2,500 dollars. She was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay $10,000 dollars in restitution. Stafford is suspected of using the office of County Clerk to steal over $25,000 dollars between May 2018 and December 2019.

Some Jackson County residents and leaders have expressed concern that issues will continue in the clerk’s office, because the charges were not severe. Bratton said that even though Stafford may have stolen more, he can only prosecute what he can prove.

“The charges we brought were the ones we could say, without any shadow of a doubt, she did it, she was guilty of this,” Bratton said. “The restitution amount reflects the charge we were able to prove from the department of revenue investigation. There will always be questions on whether she took a lot more.”

“Stepping a charge down one level is pretty common in how we go about doing plea deals,” Bratton said. “There’s a lot that goes into that. I certainly would not want to hide the fact that our goal was both to ensure she had felonies so she could never run for office again, and to ensure we got the restitution of at least the amounts that we were able to prove.”

State officials discovered problems with the Clerk’s office during a surprise cash count in October 2018. According to Bratton, that led to a lengthy investigation by both the Comptroller’s Office and the Tennessee Department of Revenue.