Jackson submits grievance to Bar Association
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
The husband of one of the four people arrested by District Attorney Steve Billy, against whom the Alabama Attorney General’s Office eventually dropped all charges, has filed a formal complaint with the Alabama Bar Association over the actions of the county’s top prosecutor.
The Alabama Bar Complaint Against a Lawyer was filed December 10 by Col. Charles Jackson (Ret.), whose wife, Escambia County Board of Education District 4 representative Cindy Jackson, was one of the Atmore Four.
That group also includes Atmore News Publisher and District 6 school board rep Sherry Digmon, Atmore News reporter Don Fletcher and Ashley Fore, a bookkeeper for the school system. Each was charged with revealing grand jury secrets.
Jackson’s complaint accuses the DA of “abusing his office and his power over grand juries to deliberately interfere with the (BOE’s) deliberation over the contract of the superintendent of education and to retaliate against four individuals connected to the denial of the superintendent’s contract extension.”
He also recounts for the State Bar’s disciplinary committee the DA’s continued misuse of his office in an attempt to have Digmon removed from the school board.
In conclusion, he calls Billy’s arrests and threatened prosecutions of his wife and the other three former defendants were “baseless, retaliatory, politically motivated and an abuse of office” and declares that “Steve Billy should never be allowed to practice law again in the State of Alabama.”
To read Jackson’s entire complaint below.
ALBAMA BAR COMPLAINT AGAINST A LAWYER
Complaint re: Stephen M. Billy, District Attorney for Alabama’s 21st Judicial Circuit Related civil case: Sherry Digman v. Stephen Billy, No. 24-cv-00425 (S.D. Alabama)
DETAILS OF COMPLAINT
Stephen M. Billy, District Attorney for the 21st Judicial Circuit of Alabama, willfully violated the Alabama Judicial Code of Ethics by abusing his office and his power over grand juries to deliberately interfere with the Escambia County School Board’s deliberation over the contract of the Superintendent of Education and to retaliate against four individuals connected to the denial of the Superintendent’s contract extension.
In August 2023, the School Board voted not to extend the contract of Superintendent Michele McClung. Once it did so, Billy abused the power of his office to try to unduly influence the outcome of the School Board’s political dispute. And when his threats failed to have their desired impact, Billy retaliated against four local residents who he held responsible for the Board’s decision to reject Superintendent McClung’s contract.
First, on September 19, 2023, Billy began issuing a series of subpoenas to the School Board as part of a sham investigation. See Exhibit A. [Flawed Search Warrant – seizing Cindy Jackson’s phone]. The purpose of these subpoenas was to create the impression that any financial mismanagement in the school district was the fault of McClung’s predecessors. Billy did this because the annual state audit of the School Board revealed financial mismanagement by McClung’s administration, causing the superintendent to come under pressure.
Notably-despite what Billy would later claim-this September 19 subpoena was issued by Billy himself, and not by a grand jury. The subpoena was entitled “DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S SUBOENA”; it was issued on Billy’s letterhead; and it cited Billy’s authority to subpoena documents when a grand jury was not in session. Billy gave Superintendent McClung advanced notice of this subpoena and likely worked with her to issue it, as McClung bragged that she knew what the subpoena would say, that she had copies of several other subpoenas Billy issued, and that she knew her allies in the district were safe.
Second, Billy abused his power as district attorney to threaten School Board Members-including Cindy Jackson and Sherry Digman-to vote in favor of McClung’s contract. Billy did so by sending a threatening letter to the School Board on September
21, 2023, “Re: Recent Audit.” Exhibit B. [DA Billy’s threat]
In the letter, Billy said he was concerned about “statements which are being made in the community by school board members” about the state’s audit of the School Board. He complained that the statements had “no basis whatsoever” and were “motivated by a personal agenda or some type of personal gain.” Specifically, Billy said that certain Board Members were blaming McClung for the bad audit results and “could be indicted or arrested.” Billy assured the Board that he intervened in the state audit and confirmed “there was nothing that should be presented to a Grand Jury.” He warned, however, “I do have complete control of the Grand Jury in Escambia County, Alabama,” and added that he might bring some other matters concerning the School Board before a grand jury that he was “not at liberty to discuss.” Foreshadowing his plans, Billy said that any investigation into McClung “would be protected Grand Jury information and a Class C felony if divulged by a Board Member.”
Billy then attended the meeting when the Board was set to vote for a second time on McClung’s contract. When he did so, he acknowledged how unusual it was for him to be at a Board meeting give that he “would normally not get involved in things of this nature, as far as an employment situation.” Billy stood up and waved his threatening letter at the Board, warning that he hoped they read it because he meant every word in it. He once again reiterated his threat that he controlled the grand jury in Escambia County. Billy was clear: In his view, opposing McClung’s contract was against the law-a preposterous claim.
Once the Board denied McClung’s contract for a second time, Billy put his retaliatory plan into action. He subpoenaed the phone records of Board Member Sherry Digman and procured a search warrant for the phones of Digman and Board Member Cindy Jackson on the bogus theory that two Board Members talking to one another about McClung violated Alabama’s Open Meetings Act. This charge was obviously baseless, and any district attorney (or first-year law student) acting in good faith would know that.
Then, Atmore News, a local newspaper owned by Digmon published an article by reporter Don Fletcher about Billy’s conduct at the Board meeting and his September 19 subpoena. It soon became clear that the September 19 subpoena was a trap that Billy set. After the Board rejected McClung’s contract, Billy claimed that the subpoena was a secret grand-jury document and that some people (but not McClung or her allies) who shared the subpoena-including Sherry Digman, Don Fletcher, Cynthia Jackson, and the Board’s custodian of records, Veronica Ashley Fore-had revealed grand-jury secrets.
Billy initially used criminal complaints to charge the innocent defendants. But on December 1, the last business day before the defendants were set to have a hearing to contest the lack of probable cause, a hearing at which they were set to subpoena McClung about her role in the scheme, Billy abused the grand jury to return indictments against the four innocent defendants. There was no legitimate basis for these charges, as the September 19 subpoena was not a grand-jury secret and the grand-jury secrecy law, Code of Alabama§ 12-16-215 did not apply to Billy’s four victims because they were not grand jurors, grand-jury witnesses, or a grand-jury reporter or stenographer.
But Billy didn’t stop there. Also on December 1, he indicted Digmon a second time on bogus ethics charges over conduct that the Assistant Attorney General for Alabama’s Ethics Commission had already cleared. And he had his grand jury return a prayer to impeach Digmon and remove her from the Board. In the prayer for impeachment, Billy lavished praise on McClung and said it was against Digmon’s oath of office to oppose McClung.
Then, on February 12, 2024, Billy had Digman arrested for a third time. The third arrest was purportedly because Billy, on his own initiative, reduced Sherry’s bail without telling her, causing her to be reprocessed at the jail. There was no legitimate basis for this arrest. The only point was to exert one last threatening and retaliatory act of control over Digmon.
Just nine days after Digmon’s third arrest, on February 21, 2024, Billy suddenly recused himself from all the criminal cases he brought against Digmon, Jackson, Fletcher, and Fore. See Ex. C. [Steve Billy’s Notice of Recusal]. In his recusal motion, Billy finally admitted to the court that he had “both a legal and a personal conflict” of interest and that justice would be best served by his recusal. Billy’s conflicts of interest existed before he filed the changes in the first place, and he knew that. The only thing that changed between the December indictments and Billy’s February recusal was that, on January 31, 2024, the Board paid out the remainder of McClung’s contract and terminated her employment as Superintendent.
Billy’s prosecution of Digmon, Jackson, Fletcher, and Fore were baseless, retaliatory, politically motivated, and an abuse of office. Their arrests and the seizures of their phones were obvious violations of clearly established First and Fourth Amendment law. Billy knew this, but he believes himself to be the law in Escambia County, so he did not care to follow the actual law. Steve Billy should never be allowed to practice law again in the State of Alabama.
Charles H. Jackson
Complainant