Shenile Ward, Jackson City Court office manager, has been indicted on charges of forgery and official misconduct after irregularities were found during an investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office.
According to a press release, Ward was indicted earlier this month on two counts of forgery and two counts of official misconduct.
The release says investigators discovered that the city court clerk’s office was not reporting case dispositions to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security as required, including DUI convictions, forfeitures of bail and failure to report a guilty plea.
The clerk’s office also intentionally entered information into wrong fields in the computer system, effectively concealing failure to appear cases from the Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
The release says that prevented the department from suspending driver licenses as the law requires.
Investigators say staff told the comptroller’s office that a defendant should not be penalized for failing to appear in court after being asked why information was intentionally entered incorrectly, according to the release.
Irregularities were also found in the way indigent cases were handled, including reporting dispositions for one individual’s DUI cases which had already been bound over to Madison County Circuit Court.
The release says city court staff told investigators that was done to help the defendant get their license reinstated.
The release says investigators also found multiple instances in which a clerk failed to issue capiases – the name for several different kinds of writs, or court orders, all of which require an officer to take the defendant into custody – within 30 days of the court’s order.
The release says some capiases were entered between 46 and 106 days after they were ordered.
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(PHOTO: Shenile Ward)
