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VOL. 132 NO. 30 28 PAGES 4 SECTIONS PLUS INSERTS A PUBLICATION OF MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. JEFFERSON, JACKSON COUNTY GEORGIA 30549 50« COPY
Glenn emerges victorious from long legal fray
Newsmaker of the Year
GLENN WINS TOUGH LEGAL BATTLE TO CLEAR HIS NAME
Former Jefferson Police Chief Darren Glenn (L) stands outside the Jackson County Courthouse with his attorney, Michael
Bowers, after winning an extraordinary lengthy fight to clear his name during 2007. The legal fight cost Glenn his job and
involved dozens of other people during its two-and-one-half years.
I N THE END, it came down to
defending a name.
All the twists and turns and
obscure legal maneuvering for over
two years was just background
noise.
It was the cloud put over his name
— a drumbeat of glaring headlines
and allegations and insinuations —
that pushed former Jefferson Police
Chief Darren Glenn to the edge.
He could have made it go away months ago
— pled to a few misdemeanor charges, maybe
have paid a small fine, and the legal bills and
sleepless nights and headlines would have
stopped.
And why not make it all go away? Glenn had
already lost his job, fired by Jefferson officials
over a side issue stemming from a state inves
tigation into the JPD.
And the odds were against him; the power
and unlimited resources of a state agency, the
Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, had Glenn
in its cross hairs. The agency had unleashed
the GBI to do countless hours of digging
through JPD records and to interview dozens
of people.
Then there was all that “smoke.” Some
media outlets had linked his name with the
word “corruption” so often it seemed more
like fact than mere allegations.
Over time, the unrelenting state investigation
became a public “waterboarding” of Glenn —
a near drowning of persistent pressure with no
end in sight.
So why fight all of that? Why not just plead
to some minor charge, put it all in the past and
move forward?
But there was the name thing.
“I couldn’t do it,” Glenn says now of the
offered plea deals. “I don’t want the name
‘Glenn’ associated with anything negative. It
was very important to clear my family name.”
it was a stand Glenn’s lawyer, former
Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers,
calls “gumption.”
“There were a lot of times we could have
ended this with a plea,” said Bowers. “(But
Glenn) told me he would rather fight and lose
than just give up.”
That fight, a two-and-one-half year high-
stakes legal battle, became the longest public
investigation in Jackson County’s history. As
the lengthy case dragged on, it began to cut a
wider and wider swath across the county and
the state. Glenn may have been the target, but
the vortex of the case pulled many others into
its stormy path. Other people lost their jobs.
Other investigations were begun. Dozens of
people got caught up in the swirling winds of
the Glenn case.
Then when Glenn was vindicated in
December by a Jackson County grand jury,
the shock rippled all the way from the Jackson
County Courthouse to the state’s top legal
community in Atlanta. After two-and-one-half
years, it had ended with a stunning turn of
events. And the fallout from the case may not
yet be over.
Because of the extraordinary length and
widespread impact his legal case had on
others, Darren Glenn is The Herald’s 2007
Newsmaker of the Year.
AN UNLIKELY ‘VICTIM’
One of the ironic things about Glenn’s stand
ing as the “David” who slew a legal “Goliath”
is that he’s so unsuited to the role of being a
victim.
Big, brawny and brimming with confidence
that sometimes borders on cockiness, the for
mer high school football player and wrestler
doesn’t look or act like a victim. His demeanor
is that of an impatient, gung-ho “G.I. Joe.” If
anyone had said Glenn would become an
underdog three years ago, they would have
been met with an incredulous stare.
Indeed, while serving for 10 years as
Jefferson’s police chief, Glenn sometimes
raised eyebrows with his macho style. When
he created a city SWAT team, complete with
advanced equipment and training, then
dressed them in all black for a newspaper
photo, some wondered if he hadn’t gone just
a little too far in his bid to build up a small
town police force. The photo even generated a
couple of critical letters to the newspaper.
But there was another side, too, that some
times peeked through Glenn’s veneer as a
“tough cop.” He created a city summer camp
program for underprivileged kids and funded it
with money raised by a golf tournament.
And then there was his hiring of Richard
Jewell. In the wake of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic
bombing, one-time suspect Jewell had a dif
ficult time getting a job in law enforcement,
even after his name had been cleared.
Against the advice of some, Glenn hired
Jewell to work at the JPD. He said that he felt it
was the right thing to do. If nothing else, it was
an act of compassion.
That Glenn would himself later taste the
same bitter pill of being unfairly accused of a
crime, similar to what Jewell had experienced,
is just one of the ironies surrounding the for
mer chief’s legal battle.
FIGHTING BITTERNESS
During a recent interview with The Herald
about the lengthy fight to clear his name,
Glenn said he’s trying not to be bitter about all
that happened to him.
“I’m not going to be bitter,” he said. “I have
so much to be thankful for.”
But he does acknowledge the difficulties the
investigation caused him and his family.
“It has been difficult on me, my family, the
people in this town and the police depart
ment...” he said. “The people in law enforce
ment have supported me. They know my heart
is in law enforcement... (but) it has been hard
financially.”
Glenn said that the case seemed to drag on
forever. During the two-and-one-half years, his
grandmother died and a son graduated from
college, got married and had a baby. Glenn
lost a grandparent and became a grandfather
himself, even as it seemed the rest of the world
was trying to put him in jail.
Life went on, but it wasn’t normal, he said.
He couldn’t work in law enforcement with the
investigation hanging over him. He eventually
went to work helping to install pools for a local
company.
“You get through it day by day,” Glenn
reflected. “People are dealing with tragedy
every day... You just get up every day.”
Both Glenn and attorney Bowers credit
Glenn’s family for standing with him during the
turmoil as a key factor in the final outcome.
FEELS CITY ABANDONED HIM
While Glenn may not be bitter, he said his
biggest disappointment in the entire situation
was that people in the Jefferson City govern
ment whom he had worked with for a decade
abandoned him. He was fired less than a
year from when the state investigation started,
supposedly because he had mishandled the
demotion of an officer.
“Some people I asked for support, they left
me...” he said. “They will have to answer for
what they’ve done... I wish those people would
have stood up and supported me and waited to
see the outcome.”
Just before he was fired, Glenn said he’d
asked two times to meet with city attorney
Ronnie Hopkins and other city officials to
answer a litigation threat coming from the
demoted officer and his aggressive lawyer.
But Glenn said city officials refused to set
up such a meeting. Instead, Jefferson officials,
including Hopkins, city manager David Clabo
and assistant manager John Ward, met with
the demoted officer and his lawyer. At that
meeting, Jefferson officials agreed to give the
officer all he asked for — back pay and his old
position reinstated —and then later that same
day, Clabo and Ward fired Glenn.
“After 10 years of being police chief, you
would have thought I could have stood before
the (city) attorney and told my side of the
story,” he said. “It was a hard pill to take that.”
Glenn said he was especially disappointed
in Mayor Jim Joiner. Joiner had been the
chairman of the city council police committee
for several years before becoming mayor and
had worked closely with Glenn in both roles.
In fact, Joiner had been one of Glenn’s biggest
Glenn Case Timeline
• AUGUST 2005 — District Attorney Tim Madison
calls for a state probe into allegations of corruption at
the Jefferson Police Department. The call is based on
two anonymous letters sent to Madison and from a
conversation reported to Madison that Arcade Police
Chief Dennis Bell had with a former JPD officer.
• SEPTEMBER 2005 — State officials direct the
GBI to investigate the JPD. GBI agents scour records
at the JPD and talk to officers about the allegations.
• DECEMBER 2005 — JPD Chief Darren Glenn
demotes officer Lee New.
• MAY 2006 — New’s attorney threatens to sue
Jefferson, saying his client's civil rights had been
violated by Glenn in the demotion from six months
earlier. Glenn asks for a meeting with city officials to
discuss the accusations, but no meeting was held.
Assistant city manager John Ward does an internal
investigation of the matter.
• JUNE 1, 2006 — City officials meet with New
and his attorney. New is given his old position with
back pay. In return, New agrees not to sue the city or
anyone connected with the city. That evening, Ward
and city manager David Clabo fire Glenn, saying he
had mishandled the Lee New matter.
• JULY 2006 — Glenn wins unemployment com
pensation hearing against Jefferson.
• AUGUST 2006 — Despite having agreed in
writing to not sue anyone connected with the City of
Jefferson, New files a federal lawsuit against Glenn.
Numerous depositions take place in the ensuing
months.
• DECEMBER 2006 — State prosecutors say they
are going to seek indictments against Glenn and four
other JPD officers. They don’t do that after Glenn’s
lawyer points out the proposed indictments cite a
non-existing state legal code.
Clabo resigns as Jefferson City Manager,
in part because some on the city council didn’t
approve of how he had handled Glenn’s firing.
• JANUARY 2007 — DA Tim Madison asks the
state to give the Glenn case back to him. Glenn’s law
yers say later that Madison privately contacted them
at the time, asking that they pressure The Jackson
Herald to back off its guestions about financial
records in the DA’s office. Madison reportedly indi
cated to Glenn’s lawyers that he would make the case
against Glenn go away if he could get it back from
the state. But state officials refuse to give Glenn’s
case back to Madison and Glenn’s lawyers refuse to
contact the newspaper.
• MAY 2007 — A new state prosecutor takes over
Glenn case. He indicates he will review it and make
aguick decision.
• SEPTEMBER 2007 — Prosecutors present
a day-long case to a Jackson County grand jury
against Glenn using a dozen witnesses. But they
refuse to allow Glenn to talk to the grand jury despite
a state law that gives law enforcement officials that
right. The grand jury hands down 30 indictments
against Glenn.
• OCTOBER 2007 — A Superior Court judge
throws out the indictments citing the prosecutors’
failure to allow Glenn to talk to the grand jury.
• NOVEMBER 2007 — A federal judge throws
out Lee New’s 2006 lawsuit against Glenn, citing the
fact that New had agreed not to sue anyone with the
city when he got his old position back.
• DECEMBER 2007 — Prosecutors again take
their case to the Jackson County grand jury, but this
time Glenn is in the room and is allowed to speak. It
is the first and only time he had spoken on the record
about the allegations. After hearing both sides, the
grand jury votes to not indict Glenn.
supporters over the years, often defending him
and the JPD from city council critics.
But after Clabo and Ward fired him, Glenn
said Mayor Joiner abandoned him as well.
“He (Joiner) told me he wasn’t getting
involved,” Glenn said of a conversation that
took place shortly after the firing.
After being fired, Glenn won an unemploy
ment compensation hearing against the city.
This year, he won against a federal civil lawsuit
the demoted officer had filed against him. And
partly as a result of how Glenn had been fired,
Clabo resigned in late 2006.
Still, those legal victories and Clabo’s depar
ture didn’t erase the hurt.
“I was in a fog the first two or three months
this happened... the city didn’t stand behind
me,” he said.
Not only that, but Ward would become a
prosecution witness at the two grand jury
hearings and other city officials, including his
successor as police chief, would cheerlead for
the prosecution.
continued on page 2A