After 31 years as mayor, it was a judge and a plea deal that forced a local official from his office, not voters.
The fall from office came quickly, however. Elected to his first term as mayor of Walnut Grove in 1981, Grady Sims took a new job in October of 2009 that put him in charge of a private prison facility. There, he drove an inmate to a hotel room in November of 2009 and had sex. When an investigation was launched, Sims told the inmate to lie to investigators.
Two years later, a plea deal dropped the sexual assault charges and Sims pled guilty to a single charge of intimidating a witness. He was ousted from office, barred from serving again, and sent him to prison for seven months.
From the Associated Press:
A former Mississippi mayor and prison warden was sentenced Tuesday to seven months behind bars for telling an inmate to lie to investigators about sex they had in a hotel room in 2009.
Grady Sims, who served as the mayor of Walnut Grove in central Mississippi for 31 years, told the judge that he lost his job as mayor, his personal vending business and “suffered shame and disgrace.”
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