Richard Flynn says he went to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office on November 12 to deliver evidence concerning serious threats against his family, including audio of death threats and information he believed was connected to suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of his son’s mother. According to Flynn, he had already tried to route the evidence through former Cherokee County Commissioner Steve West after being directed there by Jason Jenkins, a long-time Cherokee County employee and Flynn’s work associate, but received no follow-up.
Because Flynn’s own vehicle was inoperable, he says he borrowed Jenkins’s vehicle with permission documented by text, and that a third party delivered the keys pursuant to that arrangement. Flynn says that when he arrived at the Sheriff’s Office, he was repeatedly sent between upstairs and downstairs entrances while trying to submit the evidence, then was ultimately arrested and accused of stealing the same vehicle he says he had permission to use.
Flynn’s account is that the devices seized by law enforcement contained both the exculpatory text messages showing vehicle permission and the evidence he was trying to submit about threats against his family. After spending 13 days in jail, Flynn was released, and his court-appointed attorney reportedly reviewed the text-message evidence and indicated that the felony vehicle-theft charge was likely to be dropped.
The public case-review issue is the conflict between the official response and Flynn’s account: was this a legitimate vehicle-theft arrest arising from suspicious conduct at a public-safety facility, or did an attempted evidence submission turn into a wrongful detention despite text messages showing permission to use the vehicle? The records still need to answer what evidence was reviewed before arrest, what happened to the seized devices, and whether Flynn’s underlying threat evidence was ever formally received and investigated.
Review Richard's Case Files Here