NC sheriff resigns as DA sets up to present evidence for removing him from office

The court hearing on whether Jody Greene should be removed from office as the sheriff of Columbus County ended Monday just minutes after it started.

In front of a courtroom filled to capacity and with the district attorney’s presentation cued up on the courtroom screens, Greene’s attorney, Michael T. Mills, announced that the county’s first Republican sheriff had resigned.

Greene has been suspended from office since Oct. 4, but nonetheless has been campaigning for re-election.

Greene faced wide-ranging allegations of misconduct in office, including malicious arrests, intimidating county commissioners and sexual harassment. Greene denies all of the allegations against him, Mills said.

“Jody Greene loves Columbus County and does not want to put the people he has served through this ordeal,” Mills told Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser, who was presiding in the Whiteville courtroom.

Some people in the audience clapped when they heard the news.

After the hearing, Greene posted a statement on his campaign Facebook page in which he both asked for forgiveness for his “disrespectful and insensitive words” and warned of “a move afoot to usurp the votes of law-abiding citizens.”

“I cannot afford to spend the next week fighting in a courtroom while we are in the middle of an election to preserve our freedom,” he wrote.

If Greene wins election next month, local district attorney Jon David will revive his effort to get the former sheriff removed from office.

“My office would have an ethical obligation to file, and will file, a new Petition to Remove Greene from that term of office based on the allegations alleged in the current Petition,” David wrote in a statement released after the hearing.

David asked the State Bureau of Investigation in late September to begin a probe into possible obstruction of justice by Greene and his deputies. The impetus was a recording published by Wilmington TV station WECT in which Greene called African-American deputies “snakes” and “Black bastards.”

Greene was elected in 2018 by a narrow margin — 37 votes out of more than 18,000 counted. But investigations into allegations of illegal ballot gathering by a political operative working for Greene’s campaign and questions about whether Greene actually lived in Columbus County put the final results in limbo for months.

During that time, Greene’s predecessor, Lewis Hatcher, filed a lawsuit seeking a declaration that he was the rightful sheriff of Columbus County. To resolve that case, Greene struck a deal with Hatcher. One of the terms made public was that Jason Soles, now Greene’s challenger in this year’s election, would lead the sheriff’s office while the outcome of the election was disputed.

Soles said in an affidavit submitted to the court on Friday that he made the recording of Greene that kicked off the investigation during the period in which he was leading the office. He shared the recording with two county commissioners in 2020 and later with the SBI, Soles said.

Obstacles to Greene regaining his position as sheriff have been mounting.

His recorded comments imperiled the office’s grant funding. The North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program and the Governor’s Crime Commission notified Columbus County leaders that due to potential violations of federal civil rights law they were suspending grants to the sheriff’s office.

David also wrote a letter to Greene explaining that he could no longer call him as a witness in criminal hearings “based on his racial bias.” He sent the so-called Giglio letter, named after a U.S. Supreme Court case, to the state boards that oversee certified law enforcement officers.

Greene’s name remains on the ballot in the Nov. 8 election.

He participated in the North Carolina Yam Festival parade Saturday, driving a black Mercedes SUV with decals on the side that read “Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene.”

There are signs of protest against Greene and his chief deputy, Aaron Herring, who remains with the sheriff’s office.

A man who had accused Herring of beating him during a 2015 arrest has staged a week-long protest, standing with a sign along the main highway through Whiteville, the county seat.

The man, Juwarn Britt, has accused Herring of using a racial slur and saying that no one would be believe the story of a Black man over his own. Herring was charged, but acquitted, in that case.

Herring sat outside the early voting site in Whiteville on Sunday surrounded by signs urging voters to reelect Greene. He declined to comment on the protest.

At the same polling place, another man wore a shirt printed with the hashtag #blkbstrdsvote.

An election victory would not necessarily mean that Greene is clear of the allegations against him.

The SBI’s investigation of possible criminal behavior by Greene and deputies under his command is ongoing, David said.

At the hearing Monday morning, Greene’s attorney described the SBI report as more than 900 pages long.