A sheriff in North Carolina has been charged with plotting to murder his own deputy in 2014 after the deputy threatened to reveal a tape of the sheriff using “racially offensive language,” according to prosecutors.
A grand jury recently charged Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins with two counts of felony obstruction of justice for withholding knowledge of a credible threat made against the deputy, Joshua Freeman, and failing to take appropriate law enforcement action. Prosecutors allege he instructed another person five years ago to murder his deputy, hide the weapon, and stay quiet about the crime.
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The 2014 plan was never carried out; Freeman was not murdered.
“The indictment came after a ten-month investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI, according to a release from Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, USA Today reported.
The indictment stated that Wilkins asked someone to kill Freeman, saying, “The only way you gonna stop him is kill him [sic],” and, “The only way we find out these murder things is people talk. You can’t tell nobody nothin’. Not a thing.”
The indictment doesn’t explain what offensive comments Wilkins was “accused of making, and whether the audio recording Freeman threatened him with was ever released,” Yahoo reported.
Wilkins was released from custody on $20,000 bond and seems to still be the sheriff of Granville County. He has served in that post since 2009. He is expected to appear in Granville County court on October 9.
