Ex-sheriff gets 6 years in prison over drug dealer bribes

Published 6:18 pm Thursday, April 18, 2019

(AP) — A former Mississippi sheriff has been sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to extorting bribes from a drug dealer.

U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills sentenced former Tallahatchie County Sheriff William Brewer on Thursday.

The 58-year-old Brewer was also ordered to forfeit $42,000 and serve three years of supervised release.

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Brewer pleaded guilty in November to one count of extorting a bribe relating to $6,500 in cash that he took from the drug dealer in June.

The FBI says Brewer took bribes over 15 years. The FBI converted the drug dealer into an informant in June and recorded the informant telling Brewer of fake plans to rob a methamphetamine dealer.

The informant later delivered $3,500 more in FBI-photographed bribes, leaving them in a bucket in Brewer’s barn.