Warrant: Ex-DA Stashed Dismissals, Impersonated Cop
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation says that a recently retired county district attorney kept a file of citations he had dismissed and referred to it to call in favors.
The SBI began its probe of Person-Caswell County District Attorney Joel Brewer last fall, and released a warrant affidavit in that investigation Tuesday, the Herald-Sun reported. Brewer announced his retirement last week, with eight months left in his term, the Danville News reported.
According to the affidavit, an unnamed witness “familiar with the workings of the district attorney’s office” told the SBI that Brewer would routinely dismiss minor citations and traffic charges for people and keep copies of them in a manila file folder in his office. At election time, he would refer to the folder and call “some of those for whom he has dismissed charges, reminding them of what he did, and asked them for their vote and/or for their help while working the polls.”
Brewer also once dismissed a charge for a woman while asking for her phone numbers, which he then wrote on the citation copy, the witness told the SBI.
Four people told the SBI that Brewer wore a gold badge resembling one carried by police officers, the Herald-Sun reported. Two of those witnesses say Brewer pulled them over in his black corvette for alleged traffic violations but both said he did not attempt to issue citations.
The SBI says it seized both the manila folder and badge from Brewer’s office when it executed a search warrant at the Person County Courthouse on Feb. 23.
No criminal charges have been filed against Brewer; but if they were to be filed, then two paragraphs redacted from the warrant affidavit would become public record, the Roxboro Courier reported. When Special Superior Court Judge Gary Trawick ruled to unseal the warrant affidavit Monday, he commented that if the redacted paragraphs were made public and charges were never filed, “it could ruin a man’s reputation.”
On Tuesday, Brewer told the Herald-Sun: “I’ve got confidence in the attorney general and the SBI and the attorneys representing me. And it will be sorted out in the proper way and the proper time.”
