On Friday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) announced that former Barbour County Sheriff Leroy Davis Upshaw had been sentenced for using his office for personal gain. Upshaw, age 52, lives in Eufaula. He was sentenced to 10 years split to serve three years in the Alabama Department of Corrections for violating Alabama’s Ethics laws. The court ordered that Upshaw serve his three-year sentence in Barbour County Community Corrections – avoiding prison time. The court also ordered him to pay a $30,000 fine.
Upshaw pled guilty to the Ethics charge on June 27. In March of 2021, a Barbour County Grand Jury indicted Upshaw following an investigation by the Alabama Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Division.
Upshaw served the people of Barbour County as Sheriff for twelve years from January 2007 to January 2019. He lost a re-election bid in 2018.
At the sentencing hearing, a Special Agent with the Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Division testified that Upshaw stole $32,135.85 by writing checks to himself and having a subordinate write checks to him.
Prosecutors say that these checks were then drawn off Sheriff’s Office funds meant for law enforcement purposes and for the care of the inmates of the Barbour County jail.
The Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts originally found Upshaw personally liable for $29,000 and told him to repay it. Instead of coming up with the money to pay the debt personally, Upshaw repaid the Sheriff’s Office with $29,000 of Sheriff’s Office funds. The Alabama Ethics Commission referred the case to the AG’s office for prosecution.
The theft and subsequent cover-up formed the basis for Upshaw’s conviction and the sentence Upshaw received last week.
The Attorney General thanked the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts for their assistance in this case. General Marshall also commended the Special Agents of his Special Prosecutions Division, who investigated the case, as well as Assistant Attorneys General Jasper B. Roberts, Jr., James R. Houts, and Nathan W. Mays, who prosecuted it.
Marshall’s office has also successfully prosecuted former Clarke County Sheriff William Ray Norris and former Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely.
Steve Marshall has been attorney general since his appointment by then-Governor Robert Bentley (R) in 2017. He was subsequently elected as attorney general in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Marshall served as the district attorney for Marshall County prior to his service as AG.
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