Death of Camden Fraud Defendant

Thursday, March 6, 2024

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Good morning. This week we’re reporting on Chatham’s fix for improperly mapped addresses, the county chairman’s public safety pitch and the latest on the $3.2 million fraud case in Camden County.

Questions, comments or story ideas? You can reach me at jake.shore@thecurrentga.org.

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Addresses resolved, officials say

Remember close to two weeks ago when we revealed the “gremlins” plaguing the county’s new emergency dispatch system? Well, today, county officials told us that the addresses not properly mapped for ambulance use — an issue that has lingered since mid-January — have been fixed.

“Last night, I got a text that they have completed the last ones on there,” Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis said, “But what (the 911 center is) doing now, is they’re going back and to re-look at them to make sure we have covered everybody completely.”

The update to the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system is going out today, a county spokesperson said.

Staffers at the 911 center had to manually fix nearly 3,000 addresses in the CAD system, which previously directed ambulances to take inaccessible roads to those addresses. 

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Chairman’s public safety priorities

Ellis spoke to The Current about the address problem following his re-election campaign kickoff event on Wednesday.

The role of commission chairman is an important one. They have a wide berth of authority, from organizing commission agendas (what gets brought up, voted on), calling special meetings and signing off on every piece of legislation that comes from the body.

Public safety was a major theme in Ellis’ pitch for why he should be re-elected as chairman.

He said the county is working on getting 911 dispatchers into a better building with new equipment — referring to recent reports of dropped and unanswered calls by 911 call takers. “As all of you know, we’re suffering through some problems with technology in our 911 system. We’re working every day to make progress and one of those progresses is putting them in a place where we can have the right facility and right equipment.” A groundbreaking to begin building the new emergency dispatch center is slated for May.

Ellis also said the county received around $1.2 million from the federal government in an effort to put fire hydrants “within 1,000 feet of every house.” On Friday, commissioners approved the motion to begin the process to add hydrants in Ogeechee Farms, Burnside Island, Spanish Hammock, Sandfly and Isle of Hope.

Ellis left his re-election event to pay the necessary fees to qualify to run. As of Wednesday, the Chatham County Democratic Committee reports nobody has qualified to run against him.

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Camden fraud case standstill

Stops and starts. That’s one way to characterize the ongoing, five-year-long saga to prosecute the alleged perpetrators who misappropriated $3.2 million in Camden County taxpayer funds, according to a sheriff’s office investigator.

Charges from 2019 against four Camden residents for spending Public Service Authority (PSA) money on classic cars, genealogy websites and a privately-owned school languished amid conflicts of interest and battles over prosecutorial jurisdiction.

The first welcome piece of news came in May 2023, when the Georgia Attorney General’s Office took on the case following a pressure campaign from Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor, his chief deputy Chuck Byerly, and the Board of Commissioners.

But since last May, there’s been little movement in the resurrected case, Byerly said. “The Sheriff’s department has done everything we can. We turned over all the case files,” he said. The AG’s office told The Current in late January they were still reviewing those case files. The new statute of limitations is September 2024, according to Byerly.

One complication: The lead defendant died last summer. Former PSA Director William Brunson, who was accused of masterminding the millions that flowed out of the recreation/parks accounts, “died peacefully on July 18, 2023,” an online obituary states.

Prior to his death, Brunson served nearly three years in federal prison for tax evasion. He was ordered to pay back approximately $677,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Camden authorities weren’t able to recover all the public funds he was accused of stealing because it was converted to cash and not tracked. Byerly says they don’t know where all the money went or what it was spent on.

Nonetheless, on Brunson’s obituary page, his wife raised money to “assist financially in funding the cremation services of her departed husband.”

She raised a little over $2,500.

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