For Immediate Release:
August 10, 2023
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
Cameron Mixon (334) 242-7491
(Montgomery)— Attorney General Steve Marshall announced today former Barbour County Sheriff Leroy Upshaw, 52, of Eufaula was sentenced to 10 years split to serve 3 years in the Alabama Department of Corrections for using his office for personal gain, a violation of Alabama’s Ethics laws. The court ordered that Upshaw serve his three-year sentence in Barbour County Community Corrections. The court also ordered him to pay a $30,000 fine.
Upshaw pled guilty to the Ethics charge on June 27 of this year. In March of 2021, a Barbour County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Upshaw following an investigation by the Alabama Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Division.
Upshaw was the sheriff of Barbour County for twelve years, serving from January of 2007 to January of 2019. At the sentencing hearing, a Special Agent with the Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Division testified that Upshaw stole $32,135.85 by writing checks to himself and having a subordinate write checks to him. These checks were drawn off Sheriff’s Office funds meant for law enforcement purposes and the care of inmates. The Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts found Upshaw personally liable for $29,000 and told him to repay it. However, instead of paying the debt personally, Upshaw repaid the Sheriff’s Office with $29,000 of Sheriff’s Office funds. The theft and subsequent cover-up formed the basis for Upshaw’s conviction and the sentence handed down today.
The Attorney General thanked the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts for their assistance in this case. General Marshall also commended the Special Agents of his Special Prosecutions Division who investigated the case, as well as Assistant Attorneys General Jasper B. Roberts, Jr., James R. Houts, and Nathan W. Mays who prosecuted it.
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