Suburban Atlanta county picks successor to convicted sheriff
JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) — Voters in an Atlanta suburb appear to have replaced their convicted ex-sheriff with a former employee he backed.
Levon Allen narrowly beat Clarence Cox in a Tuesday runoff election to become sheriff of Clayton County, according to final unofficial election.
Allen, the former chief deputy in Clayton County, was chosen as interim sheriff in the southern Atlanta suburb with the endorsement of former Sheriff Victor Hill, who had been his boss. The ex-sheriff was removed from office when federal jurors convicted Hill of violating the civil rights of people in his custody by unnecessarily strapping them into restraint chairs. Hill was sentenced in March to serve 1 1/2 years in prison.
Cox is a former sheriff’s deputy in Clayton County who later served as chief of police for Clayton County schools and now is chief investigator for Fulton County’s solicitor general.
Allen won about 51% of the vote, while Cox won 49%. Election results are scheduled to be certified next week. If his victory is confirmed, Allen will serve the remainder of the four-year term, which began in 2021.
Three other candidates ran in the first round of voting.
The Clayton sheriff oversees the jail in the 300,000-person county, which has a separate police department with a chief appointed by the county commission that responds to most crimes. Allen has continued Hill’s practice of seeking publicity for anti-crime operations outside the jail, including arresting fugitives. Clayton County has a separate police department with a chief appointed by the county commission.
The jail faces scrutiny after grand jurors last week indicted 64 detainees and a security specialist on criminal charges. Prosecutors allege that drugs and other contraband were being smuggled into the jail, that inmates and their families were being extorted, and that others were engaged in bribery, aggravated assault and battery and kidnapping.
Civil rights groups say the jail is dangerously overcrowded, unsanitary, unsafe and plagued by violence.
There are also a number of lawsuits against the county and sheriff’s office because of jail conditions.
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