Back to the Report:
Cleveland Community College has accepted many government grants for big bucks over the years. Usually those grants required CCC to do certain things and make proper accounting to show that the $$$s were spent correctly. Knowingly misappropriating money from a grant from it’s intended purpose to somewhere else would be a crime called “fraud.” If two or more persons conspired to commit the fraud or any other crime, that would constitute a “conspiracy” which is defined by law as a felony crime, even if the underlying crime was only a misdemeanor.
So, with Sheriff Alan Norman on the CCC Board of Trustees, any indication of criminal activity at CCC would be promptly investigated thoroughly and turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for immediate prosecution, Right? You would think the answer would be an immediate YES. But that is wrong. Somehow Sheriff Alan Norman has been led to believe it would be a conflict of interest for his Sheriff’s Department to investigate an agency that the Sheriff himself has a leadership role in that agency. Some lawyer probably. Maybe even the DA. But hey, the fact is Sheriff Norman has not directed his law enforcement agency to investigate CCC for the criminal activity they have been accused of-for whatever reason. I recommend Sheriff Alan Norman resign immediately from the CCC Board of Trustees and get himself back 100% into his law enforcement responsibility as the Sheriff of Cleveland County so there will be no question of what the Sheriff’s duties and priorities are.
Then you have to consider what the Board of Trustees have done otherwise regarding the criminal allegations as well as other allegations and complaints of wrongdoing. Hey, they appointed an investigative committee who never talked to the folks who made the complaints, only those apple polishers who were accused. So, what did they come up with? A report that found nothing was wrong and blamed those who made complaints of being “disgruntled employees” who were lying and all other sorts of mayhem. Even big donors and Board members who complained of the CCC wrongdoing were talked about to the point several resigned (Patsy Rose and Ellis Monroe) from the Board and others vowed not to give another dime to CCC.
Now the CCC Board has initiated lie detector testing and outside investigators who have only been given the same biased material the BoT used to begin with, and the BoT denied a Public Records request for the all the material to be used in the lie detector testing as well as all the other investigations. It’s a “fix” and everybody knows it. Who can believe now anything the CCC Board of Trustees say or any report they release to the Shelby Star-who apparently just publish what CCC gives them and never ask any questions or verify any information released to them.
Now we hear the US Department of Labor, who awarded CCC a big grant has investigators out at CCC asking questions. You gotta remember the DOL is just like Sheriff Alan Norman, the BoT and the alleged conspirators at CCC. All these allegations have happened on their watch and any bad findings will reflect badly on them too. Especially the DOL who have put out big bucks and would appear incompetent if they were found out for not discovering crimes and fraud going on right under their own noses. Their careers would be shot. So, can you depend on the DOL finding anything? I don’t.
