by Sharon Rondeau
(May 3, 2024) — On April 11, The Post & Email reported on a lawsuit filed pro se by former Shelby County, TN Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Earley Story with the intention of obtaining the pension he would have received had he not been wrongfully terminated in 1997 as a result of false criminal charges.
Story, 70, resorted to civil court after the Shelby County Retirement System Board of Administration and Trust rejected his appeal for benefits last October.
Story believes the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO), Shelby County Criminal Court and the Memphis bureau of the FBI, among many other parties, have conspired to keep a tight lid on the fact he was framed for a crime he did not commit, stripped of his 17-year position and denied the pension he believes he should have received years ago had the fraud not occurred.
For almost three decades, Story has maintained and credibly demonstrated he was targeted for retribution as a result of whistleblowing complaints he made as an SCSO jailer. Beginning in the late 1980s through 1995, Story reported to the Memphis FBI, the NAACP and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee the horrific conditions he witnessed in the jail culminating in the sexual assault of an inmate and wrongful death of another.
Story’s incident reports appear on the last three pages of the following documentation.
As The Post & Email has related, a U.S. Justice Department investigation report written in 2000 supported Story’s claims and ordered that then-Shelby County Sheriff A.C. Gilless institute a step-by-step remediation plan to protect inmates’ constitutional rights, health and safety.
The case against Story began on January 31, 1997, when he was arrested on three counts of allegedly attempting to sell marijuana, a felony at the time, to SCSO confidential informant Alfredo Shaw earlier that month.
Voluminous documentation Story has acquired over the years includes an arrest record for Shaw, who later recanted the condemnatory testimony he provided at Story’s trial.
On April 3, 1997, Story was exonerated of all three charges by an order from Judge Ann Pugh, now deceased, for “lack of probable cause.” Pugh also ordered his criminal record expunged.
According to a 2016 article in the Memphis-based The Commercial Appeal:
In her courtroom, Ann Pugh could be so intimidating, such a stickler for proper procedure that some attorneys dubbed her “Queen Ann.”
It wasn’t that she was mean, however, several attorneys said Tuesday. It’s just that she demanded respect, not only for her position but also for the criminal justice system as a whole.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike learned quickly that you didn’t come to Judge Pugh’s courtroom unprepared, nor did you fail to mind your manners once you were there.
Despite Pugh’s dismissal of the case, on August 8, 1997 the SCSO rearrested Story, charging him with one count of selling 307 grams of marijuana to Shaw. Disregarding the constitutional protections against double jeopardy and a mandatory grand-jury indictment prior to advancing the charge, Story was tried and convicted that December without even an affidavit of complaint. Consequently, he was deprived of his voting rights for a number of years and permanently prevented from working in law enforcement due to the felony on his record.
Section 10. That no person shall, for the same offence, be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb… [Tennessee constitution]
Section 14. That no person shall be put to answer any criminal charge but by presentment, indictment or impeachment. [Tennessee constitution]
In the newest twist in his 27-year-long saga to obtain justice, after applying for retirement benefits, in defense of its position, the Board revealed a document stating that only two of the charges Pugh dismissed had been thrown out but a conviction on the third.
Shaw was also a key witness for the prosecution in the 1996 trial of death-row inmate Tony Carruthers, who was recommended for execution in 2019 but whose federal public defender successfully argued against it, citing his mental state.
According to The Appeal, Carruthers was “forced to represent himself” during his trial. Shaw later recanted his testimony in that case, also, in a statement to local media.
Story, too, at one point was told he must proceed without an attorney but succeeded in convincing the court he was constitutionally entitled to representation, a bedrock of U.S. criminal procedure.
Since 2010, The Post & Email has reported Tennessee’s unconstitutional method of selecting and retaining grand-jury foremen through an arbitrary, unknown or nonexistent vetting process.
After discovering the existence of the false document, Story accused Tennessee’s 30th Judicial District of “fraud” since how in 2021, he was told in writing that his criminal court “jacket,” or file, had been “destroyed” based on a “ten (10) year retention” policy.
Over the years Story has filed a post-conviction petition, numerous appeals, a habeas corpus petition and a Writ for Error Coram Nobis containing the documentation Carruthers had sent him, all to no avail as each court upheld the decision of the court from which Story’s appeal emanated.
In late 2017, Carruthers sent Story an unexpected mailing containing a copy of the SCSO log book for confidential informants from the 1990s revealing no recorded drug sales on any of the three dates cited in Story’s arrest warrant, serving as the basis for Story’s Writ for Error Coram Nobis.
Judge Chris Craft, who oversaw Story’s post-conviction appeal and told a parole board Story had entered a “guilty” plea to the marijuana charge, refused to give Story’s new evidence any serious consideration.
In regard to his lawsuit for retirement benefits and the underlying corruption, Story has pleaded his case with Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s Division of Consumer Affairs; Callon Parham, assistant to Chancery Court Judge Melanie Taylor Jefferson, who is presiding over Story’s case; Matthew Hollon, Chief Executive Assistant to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris; and a local attorney specializing in “employee benefits.”
An April 1 email Story sent to the group reads, including a reference to Carruthers’s plight and supporting documentation:
United States Attorney Kevn Ritz or Somebody needs to step up to the plate and enforce justice in this matter. Judge Ann Pugh’s order that was expunged on 4/3/1997, keeps reappearing, even in this man’s death row case! This recording is not frivolous evidence. Even the United States Constitution forbids Double Jeopardy! Why has this injustice been allowed to last all these years?
“The recording” refers to the April 3, 1997 preliminary hearing during which Pugh dismissed all three charges.
On April 18, Story wrote to the same group, attaching the letter from General Sessions Clerk Joe Brown (pictured above) to ask how the Shelby County Retirement System Board of Administration and Trust could have acquired a document stating Pugh did not dismiss the third charge on April 3, 1997 when in 2021, he was told his entire criminal record had been discarded.
Because of being a non-lawyer is the chief reason that the Shelby County Retirement Board is allowed to obstruct the late Judge Ann Pugh’s order of dismissal of the preliminary hearing that occurred on 4/3/1997. How could the board be given records and I have been told the hearing records were destroyed by a 10 year policy?