Former Limestone Sheriff Mike Blakely was sentenced to three years in a county jail after a two-hour hearing that featured testimony from family, a sheriff’s office employee and a former state Supreme Court judge. However, he won’t be serving that time in Limestone County — and could avoid serving it all for a while longer.

Blakely was convicted Aug. 2 by a Limestone County grand jury of first-degree theft and use of his official office or position for personal gain. Judge Pamela Baschab on Friday ordered a three-year sentence for each charge, to be served concurrently and not served in Limestone County, with two years of unsupervised probation after Blakely’s release.

She also reminded Blakely and defense attorneys of the 42-day window in which they could file an appeal, setting the appeal bond at $50,000. A notice appeal was filed in the public court records system by noon Friday, and Acting Sheriff Mike West confirmed Blakely had been released from the jail by mid-afternoon.

He had been taken to the Limestone County Jail after the verdict was read earlier this month and remained there until sentencing Friday. During his testimony at Friday’s hearing, Blakely said being an inmate at the jail he oversaw for nearly 40 years allowed him a different perspective.

The hearing

Blakely’s sentencing hearing was attended by so many people Friday that a court bailiff eventually had to start turning people away, citing a lack of available seating. Prosecutors declined to call witnesses to testify at the hearing but requested a chance to respond to the defense’s witnesses.

Defense attorneys called four to the stand, including Blakely himself, during the hearing. The court heard first from Ray Latham, who served as Clay County’s sheriff and previously worked as a federal marshal. He said while with the U.S. Marshals Service, he was assigned to Huntsville and worked with Blakely often, describing the former Limestone sheriff as “very cooperative” and “very cordial.”

Following Latham were Maggie Settle, a Limestone County Sheriff’s Office employee who works on the courthouse security team, and Michael Anthony Blakely II, Blakely’s son. Each became emotional on the stand.

Settle called for Baschab to show mercy, saying she didn’t care if Blakely was sentenced to 25 years of probation so long as Baschab wasn’t “throwing him to the wolves” by sending him to jail. Settle testified that Blakely had helped her family on several occasions, from saving her brother from a death row sentence to helping bury her mother.

“People make mistakes, but … I want you to understand how good the sheriff’s been to my family,” Settle said. “… He’s done so much for Limestone County. It’s unreal.”

Blakely’s son shared his own past with the courtroom, admitting to struggles with drinking and fighting but crediting his dad with helping him get on the right path. He said he’s now an employee at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, where he also works to protect the public, like Blakely did as sheriff.

The younger Blakely said he chose to speak that day because he was trying to “do for him what he did for me. I’m sticking by him.”

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of … but I’m proud of that man right there,” he said, pointing to Blakely.

After his son stepped down, Blakely made his way to testify, telling the judge he wouldn’t talk about awards or accolades but instead hoped to “tell you who Mike Blakely is.”

He described his childhood in Limestone County, saying his parents were “good, Christian, hardworking” people who taught him to also work hard and respect others. He said he worked on the family farm as a kid and had the “best, most storybook childhood.”

Today, he said, his hobbies are “riding horses and helping people,” two things he’s gotten to do a lot of as sheriff.

He said he doesn’t believe he broke the law and noted how the inmates gave him cards and offered to pray over him when he was taken back to the jail as an inmate himself. He said people he’s never met did the same.

“I have truly enjoyed and am thankful to the people of this county,” Blakely said. “… I care about the people of this county. It’s been an honor to serve (as sheriff).”

While the conviction means he can never return to being sheriff, Blakely said he has bills and attorney fees to pay. He noted how much he’s missed his dog, Shadow, because of his time in jail.

“I ain’t seen my dog in three weeks,” he said. “I sure would like to see her.”

Justice visit

In addition to having family and friends testify on his behalf, Blakely had a new member join his defense team Friday — Sue Bell Cobb, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Cobb said she was there without compensation in response to a request from Blakely’s supporters. She spent several minutes discussing Blakely’s career in the county, highlighting the number of cases solved by his office.

She said only one murder remains unsolved in Limestone County. The victim, 31-year-old Robbie Thrasher, was found in the trunk of his car in November 2002. Investigators believed he was trying to meet someone in a Chevrolet Silverado near Mooresville, and a $20,000 reward was offered for information that could solve the case, but by 2007, the case had gone cold.

Cobb also noted the growth Blakely helped foster in the rodeo — she said nearly $1 million has been spent on vehicles, protective gear and a firing range for LCSO because of it — and in the pistol permit fund, which she said only had $1,500 when Blakely became sheriff and now has more than $800,000. The pistol permit fund, also known as the law enforcement fund, is use as discretionary funds for LCSO, she said.

Cobb said Friday was the first time she’d stood in a courtroom to defend a criminal defendant, and she realized the Alabama attorney general’s office had “worked real hard to make this a heinous offense,” but she believed Blakely and his supporters were the real victims. She said he’d lost his job, retirement, wife, mother-in-law, sister and more in less than a year, and a “mistake in judgment” should not be treated as a crime.

State responds

After defense attorneys finished calling witnesses, Assistant AG Kyle Beckman gave the state’s response. He said prosecutors weren’t attempting to negate any good works Blakely had done while sheriff, but that one does not get to turn public service into a “give and take.”

Defense attorneys had mentioned Blakely’s loss of job, community support, retirement and other benefits due to the conviction. On this point, Beckman said, losing a job after being accused of using the job to commit theft was simply a “logical result” and by no means enough to disregard the idea of time in jail for the theft.

“They’re asking you … to give him a benefit not afforded other defendants,” Beckman told Baschab.

He said time in jail was important because it sends a message and deters other public officials from committing similar criminal acts. As for community support, Beckman gestured to the full courtroom, saying Blakely must not have lost that much if the courtroom had more people in it Friday than it had at any point during the trial.

Beckman said prosecuting Blakely’s case was not politically motivated — “I didn’t know who Mike Blakely was three years ago. I’d never heard his name in my life” — but that failing to give a custodial sentence could make it harder to prosecute other public officials in the future. He said it could lend credibility to the idea that what Blakely did wasn’t really a crime.

Blakely was convicted of stealing $4,000 in campaign funds and borrowing nearly $30,000 in loans from a safe that held funds provided by inmates and their families for use by inmates. Beckman noted that it was likely more than $100,000 was borrowed, but they only selected 19 checks from Blakely’s bank records to use in the case.

After the hearing

Prosecutors had requested three years per charge, to be served concurrently and not in Limestone County, with two years of supervised probation and several thousand dollars in fines. Baschab agreed to all but the fines.

After Blakely’s sentencing, Deputy AG Clark Morris told reporters she felt Baschab had sent a message: Public corruption will not be tolerated in Limestone County. Morris said it was important for the AGO to send that message as well.

“It’s been a big summer, and it was a long trial, and honestly, I think justice was served today,” Morris said.

Outside the courthouse, defense attorneys also spoke with reporters. Attorney Robert Tuten said the team would be focusing on the appeal and the two charges of which Blakely had been convicted.

“That will take some time,” he said, “so we just want to take a step back right now and let the dust settle on the sentencing hearing a little bit, then focus on the appeal from this point on.”

He said no one knew as of Friday how long the process would take, but “the more complicated the case is, the longer it will take, and I can tell you this is pretty complicated.”

As Tuten spoke, Blakely left the Limestone County Courthouse, at which point a man began shouting at the former sheriff. He continued shouting from the sidewalk that justice had been served and calling Blakely the “dictator of Limestone County” even after Blakely left The Square.

The shouting sparked another man to begin shouting back in Blakely’s defense. The two men attempted to shout over one another for a few minutes before going their separate ways, though not before several media outlets, including The News Courier, were able to capture the exchange on video.

The News Courier will have additional coverage of the trial as it continues through the appellate court system.