DEPUTY ALLEGEDLY TOOK PAY FOR DRUG SEARCHES

Case Is The Latest In Perry Involving Law Enforcement

HAZARD, Ky. - A Perry County sheriff's deputy was arrested after a grand jury accused
him of illegally taking payments for searches by the department's drug dog.

Deputy Sheriff Frank Smith was placed on unpaid administrative leave
by the sheriff after his arrest Wednesday. Smith was charged with four
counts of theft by deception, one felony and three
misdemeanors.

Smith's arrest was the latest development in various investigations of
law-enforcement agencies in the Eastern Kentucky county.

Sheriff Pat Wooton, who took office in January, said the previous
sheriff's administration is being investigated by Kentucky State
Police and the state attorney general's office. Smith was a deputy
under the previous sheriff, Les Burgett, and under Wooton until he was
placed on leave.

Besides the sheriff's department, the county jail and the Hazard
police department are being investigated, but the cases are not
directly related, said Jim Huggins, director of the attorney general's
public corruption unit.

"If you are looking for a common bond to me it boils down to greed,"
said Charlie Hammonds, an assistant to Hazard Mayor Bill Gorman.

"But I don't think these people know each other. People do these
things, and sometimes they get caught."

Smith is accused of wrongfully charging the Letcher County school
district for drug searches performed by Perry County's drug dog last
year, Wooton said.

According to Wooton, Smith told the school district that he owned the
dog, and Smith received several payments for the dog's services. The
dog was owned at the time by the sheriff's department, Wooton said.
"Deputy Smith then took those checks and deposited them into his
personal bank account," Wooton said in a statement. "Payroll records
indicate that Deputy Smith claimed to be at work with the Perry County
Sheriff's Department at the same time he was being paid to conduct
drug searches in Letcher County."

Wooton said that Burgett, the former sheriff, had not given Smith
permission to put the payments in his personal account. Burgett could
not be reached for comment.

Smith was arrested at his home and taken to the Letcher County jail,
where he was later released.

Smith's arrest came less than two weeks after former Hazard police
evidence officer Calvin W. Sizemore was arrested on charges stemming
from missing evidence at the Hazard police department.

State police also are investigating the county jail after Wooton and
Perry County Judge-Executive Ray Noble complained of prostitution,
drug use and inmate abuse at the facility.

Wooton said that when he took office in January, he was contacted by
state police and the attorney general's office "regarding several
ongoing investigations they were conducting."

Wooton said the investigations "involved personnel within the
department who had worked under the former administration." He said he
pledged his full cooperation. "I want to make it perfectly clear that
such conduct would never and will never be tolerated within my
sheriff's department," he said.