- July 24, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Alabama prosecutors today argued that the sheriff gave a reserve deputy card to Tong Shen Chiou, a man he had never before met, in an attempt to get the man to give him a $50,000 loan.
Sheriff Mike Blakely then sent inmates to work at a business Chiou co-owned with Brad Pullum, one of the sheriff’s former employees.
But defense attorneys were able to cast doubt on the credibility of Pullum and another of the state’s witnesses today in the corruption trial against Blakely, the elected sheriff of Limestone County, home to the fast-growing suburbs just west of Huntsville.
During testimony, Chiou alleged that Pullum swindled him out of $750,000 to finance various business ventures that never took off. Blakely’s defense attorneys questioned whether Pullum was drunk or high during his testimony. Pullum told the jury that he took prescribed pain medication before testifying but that he hadn’t been drinking.
The state called Pullum to testify about a time…
