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00:01Sidney Dorsey was the first African-American sheriff in DeKalb County.
00:07It was a momentous achievement.
00:09I think Sidney Dorsey was a pioneer.
00:12DeKalb County had a history of corrupt sheriffs.
00:16They needed a sheriff who was going to come in and kind of right the ship.
00:19We're concerned about dealing with the future.
00:22They should be addressed, and you can be certain that we shall address them.
00:26He was seen as no-nonsense, get things done, solve cases.
00:31Mr. Dorsey was getting results.
00:33The world was his oyster.
00:35The sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official in the county.
00:39And with that comes power.
00:44Power brought him sense. Power brought him money.
00:47He would use any means necessary to keep that power, including murder.
00:56Another young boy has been found dead in the Atlanta area.
01:25This past year, nine children aged between seven and 14 have disappeared.
01:32From 1979 to 1981, at least 28 children or young adults from the city of Atlanta were murdered and sometimes sexually assaulted.
01:43All the victims were African-American.
01:45It was every week or so that they would find another body or somebody else would go missing.
01:50There was a team of a hundred detectives from the Atlanta Police Department.
01:55Atlanta Police Detective Sidney Dorsey, tough, experienced, streetwise.
02:01Sidney Dorsey was appointed as the co-lead detective, which gave him incredible power within the African-American community and incredible respect.
02:13The pressure to get a case like that solved would be tremendous.
02:17So do you get the feeling that things are more together after tonight than they were last night?
02:20Yes, I have this distinct feeling.
02:22He was one of the lead detectives in apprehending the suspect, Dwayne Williams.
02:28Mr. Dorsey loved the camera.
02:33I think that the narcotics division, doing a fantastic job, naturally would rather not have any homicides.
02:39And he was very good at giving interviews.
02:43He had a swagger about him.
02:45He looked and acted like a lot of people thought a homicide cop should look and act.
02:50And he played it to the hilt.
02:52He became a very important player inside the Atlanta Police Department.
02:57And he had the respect of his community.
03:04Sidney Dorsey was born in 1940.
03:07He was not born into privilege.
03:09He was like many African-Americans, hoping to have a better life for his family, hoping to succeed, hoping to become somebody.
03:18Sidney Dorsey was one of the early African-Americans to join the Atlanta Police Department.
03:23Mr. Dorsey worked his way from a beat cop to a motorcycle cop to a street cop, ultimately to a detective.
03:32There was an effort on the part of city leaders to bring African-Americans into the police department.
03:39I was one of the first African-American students to go to a school in the district I grew up in, south of Atlanta.
03:47It was good for the African-American community to see black officers wearing law enforcement uniform.
03:54He was known in the black community. He was accepted in the black community.
03:58He could talk to people in the black community that white cops could not.
04:02I think Sidney Dorsey was a pioneer in rising to the rank of homicide detective at that time in that department.
04:08I think was a significant achievement and something that people noticed and paid attention to.
04:14He was very ambitious. He loved being a cop, but he also loved the authority and the privileges it gave him to be a police officer.
04:23When I first met Sidney Dorsey in person, I think he was a very prideful man, the way he conducted himself.
04:31He let you know that he was in charge.
04:36He was seen as no nonsense, get things done, get answers, solve cases.
04:42Mr. Dorsey was getting results and no one looked to see how he obtained those results.
04:48There was an incident where a teenager was parked next to Mr. Dorsey and both of them were filling their cars up with gas.
04:56Somehow the teenager spilled gas on Mr. Dorsey's car. There was an argument.
05:01Mr. Dorsey shot and killed him. This was an unarmed teenager.
05:05Mr. Dorsey alleged self-defense. There was an investigation, but in the end, there was someone who made it go away.
05:15I think Sidney Dorsey believed in law and order, but he also viewed that through his own personal prism.
05:21If he thought it was wrong, it was wrong. If he thought it was right, it was right.
05:28He ultimately met and married Sherry Dorsey, who was a city council member on the city of Atlanta.
05:33Sherry was beautiful. She was smart and she was ambitious.
05:37And Sidney was young, smart and equally ambitious.
05:41And so together they became one of the premier power couples of Atlanta and Georgia.
05:47In 1996, Sidney Dorsey ran for sheriff of DeKalb County.
05:57And as much as he'd accomplished at that point in his life, the power structure laughed at it.
06:02He said there's no way that an African-American will ever be elected sheriff in one of the largest counties in Georgia.
06:09I believe it was the first time an African-American had run for a position of sheriff in DeKalb County.
06:16He looked at the numbers, how quick the county was changing, and I thought he saw the writing on the wall.
06:21DeKalb County had a history of corrupt sheriffs, and Dorsey had the credentials of being a cop.
06:30And all of us were saying it would be nice to have a sheriff who was actually a police officer.
06:36DeKalb County needed an honest sheriff.
06:38They needed a sheriff who was going to come in and kind of right the ship.
06:42The sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official in the county.
06:47And he has a powerful position to hold.
06:50So the sheriff can fire and hire at will.
06:54We're electing an individual to be in charge of a big operation employing a thousand people.
07:01Sid Dorsey saw a path to power, and he aggressively pursued it.
07:07With the race for sheriff in DeKalb County underway, Sidney Dorsey is odds-on favorite to become the county's first black CEO.
07:17He was going to bring integrity to the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.
07:21He was going to offer a change.
07:27Sidney Dorsey was successful, and he was the first African American elected sheriff in DeKalb County.
07:33It was a momentous achievement.
07:42Mr. Dorsey was a very popular sheriff.
07:45His presence was demanded at all types of events, church events, funerals, fundraisers.
07:54He was a breath of fresh air in DeKalb County to have someone like him working in the sheriff's department.
08:00Sidney Dorsey had support from the community.
08:03It seems like he had a plan.
08:06It was primarily a strategy meeting, meetings with the commissioner, meeting with concerned citizens.
08:13We're now concerned about dealing with the future.
08:16They should be addressed, and you can be certain that we shall address them.
08:20The sheriff's department seemed to be functioning very well.
08:23He was proud to be the sheriff of DeKalb County, and I could tell he loves that power of being the sheriff.
08:32In mid-2000, my photographer Jim Bridges and I had just wrapped up a live shot for the newscast,
08:41and we decided to stop off and get a soft-serve ice cream at the Dairy Queen.
08:45I'm standing in line waiting my turn, and I feel this tap on my back.
08:50And I turned around, and there was a gentleman standing there, and he says,
08:52You're Dale Cardwell with Channel 2.
08:54I said, Yes, I am.
08:56He said, I've got a story that will shock you and be the biggest story you've ever told,
09:03but I don't know if you have the courage to tell him.
09:12Were you involved in the murder?
09:14Yes, sir.
09:15He handed me a paper that said, Killed this man.
09:24In 40 years of investigative reporting, I've observed two types of sheriffs,
09:28regardless of what state I lived in.
09:30There's the quiet, behind-the-scenes power brokers who never want to be on the evening news,
09:36but they wield their power and their authority unchallenged.
09:40And then there are the showboats.
09:42Sidney Dorsey was a showboat.
09:44He slapped his name on everything.
09:47I would see Mr. Dorsey traveling around in a limousine with a driver.
09:53I saw his name on patrol cars.
09:55I saw his name on billboards.
09:57I saw his name on governmental offices that I went in and went out of.
10:01I just thought, why is this guy putting his name on everything?
10:05He liked to travel with a bevy of bodyguards around him.
10:09He would wear a uniform that had epaulets on it that no other sheriff in Georgia had.
10:15I thought, what vanity?
10:17And nobody was saying anything about it.
10:19He wanted to be a celebrity and wanted the attention of the public.
10:25I had no idea how profound the meeting in the Dairy Queen was going to be to not only my career, but for the city of Atlanta.
10:35When I called the person who handed me his card, he told me something that shocked me.
10:41He said, Sheriff Sidney Dorsey is using on duty deputies to staff his private security jobs in counties all over the metropolitan Atlanta area.
10:53I said, you've got to be kidding me.
10:56While Sidney Dorsey was serving as sheriff, he was also operating SID investigations, which was a private security company.
11:03Operating a private security company, if it was completely distinct from any operations in the sheriff's office, it's not illegal.
11:11It's not necessarily unethical.
11:13Dale Cardwell actually went to a bank and caught a detention officer on camera.
11:19Are you on the county clock right now?
11:21That's not your business.
11:23Oh, it is if I am a Dekalb County taxpayer.
11:26I'm still there, OK?
11:27Can you tell me if you're on the clock right now?
11:32I had to determine if Sidney Dorsey was breaking the law as in a blatant manner as it appeared to be.
11:38What does Sheriff Dorsey have to say about this? No comment.
11:42In fact, he's refused every request for an interview.
11:45Officer Murray just thought he was doing his job being a sheriff's deputy standing there at the bank.
11:53He had no idea that Mr. Dorsey's firm was getting paid for that service.
11:59Since the sheriff asked me to do it and he picked me to do it, just being a good story, just follow an order.
12:04I was sure there was going to be a reasonable explanation about what had occurred.
12:10And I did not believe that Mr. Dorsey knowingly was guilty of corruption, that it could be just sloppy bookkeeping.
12:19If Mr. Dorsey knowingly was sending sheriff's deputies into security work and his security firm was getting paid for this work and the county was paying the sheriff's deputies, then it would be theft of services.
12:34I got a call from my director, J. Tom Morgan. I knew when J. Tom called and requested the GBI and me to do this investigation, I knew it was going to be an unusual case.
12:46The GBI, George DeBeer Investigations, we assist local law enforcement. That's how I got involved in this investigation.
12:55I've never had a case like this case, the most bizarre case I ever worked as an agent with the GBI.
13:03We were able to interview Officer Murray. On many occasions, he was ordered to go to banks or other places to provide security.
13:12He had no idea, none at all, until he saw himself on television that he was working for SID, Mr. Dorsey's security firm.
13:24There were many instances with several different sheriff's employees being ordered to provide security for the security firm while they were being paid for the county. This was corruption.
13:37Well, it's serious because you're using the taxpayers' money for personal gain.
13:45Sidney Dorsey was using the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department and its $30-plus million budget at will. It was his playpen. He did anything he wanted to do.
13:57He would dispatch deputies to go pick up his kids or bring them a Happy Meal at school.
14:03Mr. Dorsey was stealing money from the citizens, and that's what caught a lot of people's attention.
14:10The public was able to see for the first time that Mr. Dorsey was not who they believed him to be, the highly decorated Atlanta police officer who was leading, with integrity, the Sheriff's Department.
14:25I was just highly disappointed. I think, unfortunately, ego gets in the way, and people take office, and they forget that they're here to serve, and they're looking to serve themselves.
14:37I remember the day that we aired the story, and our phones started ringing off the hook.
14:44The more evidence we gathered, the more I realized we had the story. This was the defining moment.
14:52I did not believe that Sidney Dorsey had the capability of being dangerous. Had I known that, it might have changed my actions.
15:00It's called Operation Facelift. Mrs. Dorsey's program is renovating homes across her district, all for free.
15:09The labor, of course, is free. Inmates from the county jail came courtesy of her husband, DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey.
15:17Dorsey was transporting inmates from the DeKalb County jail to his wife's political district to perform various home improvement jobs.
15:30These were inmates that were facing sometimes very serious charges who were let loose with very little supervision.
15:39The whole purpose was to garner favor by the constituents of Mrs. Dorsey, but also for Mr. Dorsey to get votes.
16:02Sidney Dorsey was representing the African American community, so everybody was highly disappointed that he would come into the office and bring in more corruption.
16:17I think then it comes down to a question, okay, what's the motivation here? What's the most important thing to the sheriff at this point?
16:24Mr. Dorsey alleged it was a conspiracy to throw him out of office, that these were made up lies.
16:32Sidney Dorsey was infuriated, and it was the first time that anyone associated with Sidney Dorsey threatened my life.
16:39One of his entourage came up to me and said, you're trailing in very, very dangerous water, and something very bad is going to happen to you unless you stop it.
16:49It frightened me. I had no idea what Sidney Dorsey was capable of.
16:56My reaction to that was, oh, God, they're serious. This is real. This is not pretend. This is life and death.
17:04I don't know if Sheriff Dorsey was corrupt when he became sheriff, but the things he was doing after he became sheriff was corrupt.
17:13His attitude was, he's a sheriff and he can do what he wants to do.
17:17As I started investigating Sidney Dorsey, these deputies, you know, were afraid to speak out.
17:23They were afraid to talk to me for fear of retaliation.
17:26Some time in October, Special Agent Mays contacted me.
17:35He said that he was about to interview someone that had pertinent and relevant information about the corruption going on in the sheriff's department.
17:44And the next day he showed up in my office.
17:47Fred Mays had a confidential interview with the owner of a bonding company named Shirley McMichael.
17:54Ms. McMichael, she applied to be a bonds person in Decap County.
18:00Next thing she knew, she had been granted the authority to operate a bonding company in Decap.
18:07Her financial situation overnight changed dramatically from making about $20,000 a year to a yearly income starting at $150,000 a year.
18:19Cindy Dorsey told her that there was a price to pay to operate a bonding company in Decap County.
18:30And she had to pay that price.
18:33That price was sex and money.
18:38I was stunned to discover that the high sheriff of Decap County has absolute authority to do what they think is proper or improper.
18:55You have food service contracts.
18:57You have security contracts.
18:59You have fleet contracts.
19:01These contracts are worth millions and millions of dollars.
19:04Cindy Dorsey was a man with power.
19:07And he definitely used the power to his benefit.
19:10And he felt like he was on top of the world.
19:13He could do what he wanted to do.
19:17Bonding company works out of a jail at the approval of the sheriff.
19:22And Shirley McMichael owned a bonding company.
19:25She testified later that the only way she was able to get that license was to have sex with the sheriff anytime he wanted to have sex.
19:34Shirley McMichael described how Cindy Dorsey would come over to her house to have sex with her.
19:39He would take his gun and lay it on the coffee table there.
19:44She said she was intimidated by him.
19:48Cindy Dorsey was making her give him thousands of dollars to keep her bonding company inside his jail.
19:56And he was extorting money from her.
19:58There was not going to be a paper trail of the money.
20:01In fact, one time, Ms. McMichael wrote him a check.
20:06He tore the check up and ate it and said, I only take cash.
20:10The things he was making her do and the money he was making her pay him, to me, that was shocking.
20:17She was scared.
20:18She was afraid of Cindy Dorsey.
20:20Out of fact, one night, she came home and her door was open.
20:26And she called me and we went and cleared her house for her to make sure no one was there before she went in.
20:33To treat a person like he was treating Shirley McMichael, that was shocking.
20:38I knew this investigation had just taken a 90-degree turn.
20:43My phone would not stop ringing with stories about the corruption in the Sheriff's Department.
20:48The floodgates opened.
20:51One lady alleged that she was not being promoted in the Sheriff's Department because she refused to have sex with the Sheriff.
21:00There were stories that Cindy Dorsey was handing out Sheriff's deputies' badges like candy.
21:06There was nothing he would stop at.
21:08I believe the public face of Cindy Dorsey was family man, church goer, law enforcement authority, and that the private Cindy Dorsey was womanizer, miscreant, and abuser.
21:23My immediate reaction was, wow, Sid Dorsey is as out of control as his personality seems to allow him to be.
21:32For him to become sheriff of a big county like DeKalb, he had to have been popular.
21:38And a lot of times political candidates will align themselves with big churches in the area.
21:45And that the minister of those congregations will encourage their congregation to vote for certain kind of candidates.
21:54Sidney Dorsey built his base of power in African American churches throughout DeKalb County.
22:01A lot of the leadership of those churches were women.
22:04And so the thought of Sidney Dorsey using his power as sheriff to force women to have sex with him was unthinkable to a lot of those people.
22:14Without a doubt, Sidney Dorsey was running the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department as his own personal kingdom.
22:25In 2000, Sidney Dorsey would have been looking at his first reelection attempt.
22:29The main opponent was Derwin Brown.
22:32Captain Derwin Brown is head to head with Sheriff Dorsey in next week's runoff election.
22:36Sheriff Dorsey, I, Derwin Brown, is hereby calling upon you to step down.
22:42Captain Derwin Brown was my father.
22:48Derwin entered the police department in the early 80s.
22:51When people would see him because he was so big, they would be afraid of him.
22:55And because he was a police officer.
22:57But he was a big teddy bear.
23:00My parents, once they met, they were inseparable.
23:04My parents were very family-oriented.
23:06My childhood was wonderful.
23:08I am a daddy's girl.
23:10I'm the only girl.
23:11I have four brothers.
23:12I had just turned 21.
23:14I had just gotten married.
23:16I had just gotten married.
23:17My father became a police officer because he was always big about helping his community
23:29and being a change.
23:30He felt like you always would have more impact by being a part of the system you want to change
23:36rather than being on the outside trying to change it.
23:39So I think it was just natural for him to become a police officer to figure out how to make the changes
23:44and be there for his people.
23:46And that's exactly what drove him to run for sheriff.
23:50He served his entire career with the police department.
23:52He had a very strong reputation.
23:55Most of his career had been spent in narcotics.
23:58And that's kind of where he made his name.
24:00He had a reputation for being honest, ethical.
24:05We all knew Derwin.
24:06We respected him.
24:08Every time he spoke, you knew he was speaking with honesty and integrity.
24:11He was very big about corruption cleanup.
24:14He knew the community deserved better.
24:18I think it's safe to say he didn't pull punches.
24:21He was talking about Sidney Dorsey being sheriff, that he had hoodwinked and bamboozled the citizens of DeKalb County.
24:27Mr. Brown repeatedly said, I will clean out the corruption that's going on in the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department.
24:33Mr. Dorsey was not the type of person who could accept criticism.
24:37And he became very angry at the allegations made toward him.
24:43I think that some people have simply gone across the line.
24:47I think that there are certain things that one must hold sacred even in the area of politics.
24:54Sidney Dorsey's first mistake is that he pretended the allegations were not happening.
25:00He said Derwin Brown was the worst goddamn son of a bitch I've ever seen.
25:06Sidney Dorsey was a very arrogant person.
25:10He still felt like he was untouchable.
25:12He felt like because of who he was, he deserved to be in that position.
25:18It didn't matter whether he was doing good by it or not.
25:21He was in the office for himself and not for the people.
25:24In his mind, he thought that Derwin Brown was a newcomer, had no political experience,
25:30and that he would easily defeat him.
25:32All Sidney had to do was make the rounds of the churches,
25:35say that the sexual harassment allegations were false and contrived, and he would be fine.
25:41I just knew that my father wanted to get in that office and he wanted to make a change and make a difference.
25:46He had already started making plans on what was to be done day one,
25:51as soon as he walked through the door of the Sheriff's Department.
25:55Derwin Brown decided that if he was elected to office,
25:59he was terminating 30-some-odd deputies and staffers at the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department.
26:05He was telling them that they would no longer be employed by DeKalb County
26:11and that they were to seek other employment.
26:13He knew some of the people were suspected of corruption.
26:16He did not want to work with them.
26:18I want to ask the public to come out and vote today.
26:23It's extremely important that we turn out.
26:25I could never imagine my dad not winning.
26:32Dorsey defeated by Brown by three to one following an investigation that discovered corruption in Sheriff Dorsey's administration.
26:42No one a month earlier would have thought that Mr. Dorsey could be defeated.
26:50My dad knew what he had ahead of him and he was excited to be able to do right by the people and help make DeKalb County a better place and help his people.
27:02There he is. Give him a hand please.
27:09Keep the focus on the people. Keep the values of the department even above yourself.
27:17And you will have indeed a successful career. Congratulations.
27:23I felt on top of the world. Any win for him is a win for me.
27:30The voters of this county made history. I'm sure that they were going to stand for what was right.
27:40So the election night was a huge party. Family, friends were all there in celebration of him winning the election.
27:47My mom and her good friend left early. She was going home so she could surprise my dad.
27:54His new uniform that he had designed had come in and he hadn't seen it yet.
27:58And so she wanted to go and hang it up so when he walked through the door would be the first thing that he saw.
28:03I just went over to him, gave him a hug and a kiss, told him that I loved him and that I was happy for him.
28:10I'll see you in the morning.
28:16We got a phone call and it was my mom's friend. I could tell something wasn't right.
28:23All I heard her say is, we got to go. Daddy's been shot.
28:33When we came into the neighborhood, they stopped us at the bottom of the street.
28:38They wouldn't let us drive up. And I just got out the car and I just started running up the street.
28:42I was just screaming like, where's my name?
28:49We finally made it to the hospital. And I remember when I walked in, I'm just looking, it was so many people.
28:55My dad's, um, he was, he was going to be, um, I guess his chief deputy.
29:04He came in the room and he looked and he wouldn't look at us in our face.
29:08He just looked up at the wall and he said, he's gone.
29:12And I'm like, what do you mean? He's gone.
29:16Cause we were in disbelief that this would happen.
29:25We had never had, uh, incident in Georgia where a sheriff elect had been assassinated.
29:41People all around the country and frankly, around the world were, were shocked at this happening in, in Georgia.
29:47The personal persons capable of doing this, they were capable of doing anything and stopping at nothing.
29:53And the DeKalb County police department, they were able to locate a number of expended cartridge shells.
29:58And they were able to determine what kind of weapon was used.
30:02It was a tech nine, which is a nine millimeter.
30:05It looks a little bit like a submachine gun.
30:08It was a somewhat unusual weapon.
30:10Seeing the election process subverted through an act of, of outright murder.
30:15I was certainly open to that possibility that maybe somebody would want him not to take office.
30:19Sidney Dorsey was still the elected sheriff.
30:22He released a statement.
30:24I extend my most deepest and most humblest condolences to the Brown family.
30:30By the hundreds, they filed into the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.
30:39Phyllis Brown, the widow of the sheriff elect, held her head high.
30:43I don't think DeKalb County has ever seen such a thing.
30:48Everybody was just in disbelief that this could even be possible.
30:53It was the biggest funeral that I personally have ever attended.
30:58At least over 2,000 people.
31:00Derwin Brown made a difference in the lives of so many people.
31:06The state of Georgia honors him today.
31:09I'd certainly been involved in complicated murders before, but this was definitely new territory.
31:23Everyone was a suspect at that time, everyone who had some kind of connection to what happened.
31:29As far as motivation, there were 38 people who were about to be fired.
31:34Patrick Cuffey was a deputy that had been hired by Sidney Dorsey.
31:38Patrick Cuffey had been on Derwin Brown's list to be terminated when he took office.
31:44He was looking at going from making a lot of money to making no money, being unemployed.
31:50He had a vested interest in Derwin Brown's murder.
31:55A school resource officer contacted the task force and said,
31:59Hey, we stopped him before the murder, not far from Derwin Brown's house.
32:04So the school resource officer saw these four men, all dressed in black.
32:09Patrick Cuffey told them that he was on, quote, a special assignment given to him by none other than Sheriff Sidney Dorsey.
32:18And got Sheriff Dorsey on the phone and Sheriff Dorsey told the school resource officer,
32:25Yes, these men work for me. They're on a special secret assignment.
32:30I believe Mr. Dorsey was involved in the assassination of his opponent.
32:36I wanted to interview Patrick Cuffey.
32:39Jay Tom called him in and offered him a deal.
32:43He was basically asking him to tell what Dorsey was doing.
32:46And I offered him immunity that I would not prosecute him for stealing from the county.
32:54And Cuffey said, Nope, I'm not going to do it, and walked out.
32:57He was not cooperating.
32:59He told me in no uncertain terms that Dorsey was a great American and that he would never testify against his mentor and his boss.
33:12Mr. Dorsey had a solid alibi that at the time of the homicide, he was home with his wife.
33:18I was wondering whether or not we could solve this case.
33:23It was in March of 2001. There was a shooting that took place at Patrick Cuffey's house.
33:33Somebody had been shot. They'd been killed.
33:35This was a drug deal going on in Cuffey's yard.
33:38And under Georgia law, felony murder is a homicide that occurs during the commission of a felony.
33:45So Mr. Cuffey was charged with felony murder.
33:50That was a great opportunity to get Patrick to talk about Mr. Dorsey's involvement with Sheriff Brown's murder.
33:57His attorney proffered a deal in which Patrick Cuffey would be able to give information about Durban Brown's murder in exchange for immunity.
34:05It was surreal because, you know, he had been kind of the number one suspect.
34:09And now here we are sitting around at a table with him, getting the whole story first person.
34:14He handed me a paper. When I opened it, it said, kill Durban Brown.
34:26If Sidney Dorsey ordered Durban Brown's assassination, it's almost incomprehensible.
34:30I think you'd have to assume that he thought he was untouchable or beyond the scope of justice.
34:36Patrick Cuffey stated that he had received a call from Sheriff Dorsey to come to his house.
34:44Dorsey handed Cuffey a note saying, kill Durban Brown.
34:49And then he took the note back and ate it.
34:52There were three other people involved on the night of the murder.
34:55Patrick Cuffey was with Melvin Walker, David Ramsey, and Paul Skyers.
34:59Melvin Walker was already a deputy in the sheriff's department.
35:03The other two wanted to be deputies in the sheriff's department.
35:08So, Dorsey promised Cuffey that Skyers and Ramsey would get jobs in the sheriff's department.
35:17And that Melvin Walker would be promoted if they all got together and killed Derwin Brown.
35:24When I was finished with the interview of Patrick Cuffey, I knew he was telling the truth.
35:31I had Cuffey call Paul Skyers.
35:33Paul Skyers was a getaway driver and would do anything Cuffey told him to.
35:39Paul Skyers corroborated everything Cuffey said.
35:42But I had to give two of those, as much as I hated it, two of those immunity if we were going to prosecute Sheriff Dorsey for this horrendous homicide.
35:51As a law enforcement officer, I don't like it.
35:55But sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil.
35:59Patrick Cuffey masterminded and organized it.
36:03But if Senator Dorsey hadn't ordered it, it never would have happened.
36:07Patrick Cuffey revealed something that we were absolutely shocked about.
36:13He said that after the assassination of Sheriff-Elect Derwin Brown that the persons who were supposed to be assassinated in this order were Sheriff-Elect Derwin Brown, myself, and then reporter Dale Cardwell.
36:28Cuffey, I believe, decided to come clean because he was looking at probably 10 years in prison.
36:34And this was the only way he was going to get out of that.
36:38And we just went forward from there.
36:40Based on the evidence, Sidney Dorsey, whether he pulled the trigger, whether he drove the getaway car, whether he gave the order and incentive to do it, he was involved.
36:49Sidney Dorsey shared in the responsibility for Derwin Brown's murder.
36:53Any party to the crime of murder can be charged with murder.
36:56And that's all it requires under Georgia law.
36:59Dorsey's plan behind all this was that he was going to retake the office of sheriff and that things were going to continue on.
37:06Sidney Dorsey used to wear the medal of a sheriff.
37:10Today, he was paraded in handcuffs and chains as the man police believe murdered Derwin Brown.
37:16It was huge, huge news.
37:18I think people wanted to think that it was a random act or that it was something else, but not that a sitting sheriff would do this to a political rival.
37:29I felt some sort of relief when I heard that Sidney Dorsey had been arrested, along with the other people that were involved, because I thought that finally justice would be served.
37:43He was charged with murder, and then he was charged with RICO crimes, which is the racketeering, basically using the sheriff's office as a criminal organization.
37:54Theft of services, theft of government employees, the slew of corruption charges, and then, of course, the more important, the murder charge.
38:01Our strategy in prosecuting Mr. Dorsey was to prove his narcissism, his arrogance, and his motivation to keep his job.
38:11And in doing that, we had to prove how corrupt the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department was under his leadership.
38:18We had built a strong case, and the question is, could we convince a jury that what we said had happened had happened?
38:25We were nervous the whole time, because we didn't know which way it was going to turn out.
38:30I have no faith in the justice system.
38:32Sidney Dorsey sat in the courtroom, and he looked as if he didn't have a care in the world.
38:38I don't think he felt that he was going to go down.
38:41This case is about power and one man's total consumption with power and what he will do to keep power at all costs.
38:51Sidney Dorsey pled not guilty to all the counts levied against him.
38:59Everyone tries to read the jury. As the jury walks in, you're trying to look. Are they smiling? Are they frowning? Are they looking at you? Are they not looking at you?
39:05And you just don't know until you hear the verdict.
39:09We, the jury, find the defendant as to count one, guilty. As to count two, guilty. As to count three, guilty. As to count four.
39:20Sidney Dorsey was sentenced to life plus 23 years to serve in prison.
39:24He was acquitted, however, of the bribery involving Shirley McMichael and the bonding company.
39:31So, effectively, it's a life without parole sentence. Sidney Dorsey won't die behind bars.
39:39Hearing the amount of time that he received and knowing that there was no possibility for him to get out, it was relief.
39:48If I was able to sit down with Sidney Dorsey for five minutes, the first thing I would ask him is, was it worth it? Was it worth it? The second thing I would ask him is really why?
40:06Mr. Dorsey loved the trappings of power. He also loved what power brought him. Power brought him sets. Power brought him money. Power brought him control over other people.
40:18I've never had an experience more profound in terms of absolute power corrupts absolutely than I had when I started learning about the extent of the corruption under Sidney Dorsey.
40:30The test, the true character of a person gives him power. And it was all about power with Sidney Dorsey.
40:39His arrogance, his narcissism, and his delusion causing him to believe that after losing an election, he could assassinate his opponent and win re-election. It is the epitome of a narcissistic individual.
40:55He changed the trajectory of our entire family. My father was our rock. And then for so many people. And he just took it away as if it was nothing. I miss him. I miss him.
41:14I miss him. I miss him. I miss him.
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