Treadwell and Herring, Bribes, Georgia 2015

GAINESVILLE, Ga. – A pair of former Hall County Sheriff’s Office employees have been sentenced for their roles in separate cases involving bribery and smuggling.

David M. Treadwell, a 33-year-old former deputy sheriff, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, and a $1,000 fine. Treadwell pleaded guilty on May 12, 2015, to accepting a bribe to tip off a person he believed to be a drug dealer if the person came under investigation by Hall County law enforcement.

Treadwell accepted $200 to $300 on five occasions from a person he believed was a drug dealer in exchange for warning the individual of any potential investigations. In late 2014, while employed as a deputy sheriff with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office, Treadwell agreed to alert the drug dealer if it was learned that the dealer was under investigation in Hall County.

Austin Herring, a 19-year-old former jailer at the Hall County Detention Center, was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. As a special condition of supervised release, Herring must serve the first six months on home confinement with electronic monitoring. Herring pleaded guilty on May 12, 2015, to smuggling what he believed to be cocaine into the jail and delivering it to an inmate.

Herring was paid $500 on two occasions to take packages he was told contained cocaine to an inmate inside the jail. On each occasion, Herring took the package to the inmate, who was cooperating with the investigation, and the inmate then turned the package over to investigators.

Treadwell and Herring were fired by the Hall County Sheriff’s Office immediately upon their respective arrests.

The cases were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the North Georgia Major Offenders Task Force, which includes deputy sheriffs from the Hall County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney William L. McKinnon, Jr. prosecuted both cases.

For further information, please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.

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