Federal agents seized boxes of documents and computers from the RCSO on May 21.

Five years ago, Republican Party State Executive Committeeman Tim Rudd went to work for Robert Arnold to make sure his name stayed on the election ballot after questions were raised about his high school special education diploma.

Amid an FBI-TBI probe of possible public corruption into Arnold’s administration, along with state Comptroller and local investigations, Rudd is sticking with him.

“He’s been a very good sheriff, and I don’t see that he’s done anything wrong,” Rudd says. “I haven’t seen anything that says he broke the law. All I see is a lot of allegations and political propaganda.”

Rudd says no evidence presented to him shows Arnold is guilty of any wrongdoing, nor has Arnold been accused of profiting at taxpayers’ expense. He calls Arnold’s situation an attack by his political enemies and a “feeding frenzy” by the press.

In 2010, Rudd, the Republican Party, former chairman Rick Womick, now a state representative, and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey’s office stepped in for Arnold to ensure he was eligible to run for office, according to sheriffrobertarnold.com.

Questions were raised about whether Arnold’s 1995 special education diploma from Oakland High School qualified him to be a law enforcement officer or sheriff candidate. A high school diploma or equivalent is required for both.

“What the state of Tennessee did and what the POST Commission attempted to carry out was not only a violation of Robert Arnold’s civil rights, it was an attack on every person with a disability . . . this stinks as bad as anything I have ever seen in my 25 years in politics,” Rudd stated.

The site states the Tennessee Department of Education and POST Commission changed course and found Arnold’s high school diploma was valid and made him eligible to serve as a law enforcement officer and run for sheriff. The POST Commission notified the Rutherford County Election Commission he should be reinstated to the ballot on April 24, 2010.

“I find it very interesting that Truman Jones is the chief law enforcement officer on the POST Commission Board and that he decided to put Mr. Arnold on administrative leave the day before the POST Commission made this politically motivated attempt to remove Mr. Arnold from the ballot. This is a despicable and pathetic attempt to destroy a man’s integrity and deny him his constitutional right to run for office,” Womick states on the website.

Reached for comment, former sheriff Jones said the issue came up when he received a call from a relative of Arnold who said he didn’t have a high school diploma. Jones said he contacted Rutherford County Schools officials and the POST Commission about the matter.

“I was trying to find out if it was going to affect our certification” at the sheriff’s office, Jones said.

At first, the state Department of Education ruled it wasn’t a diploma and the POST Commission called the Rutherford County Election Commission and notified officials there that Arnold wasn’t eligible to run for sheriff, according to Jones.

“Somebody in the Republican Party called the Department of Education and they changed their position on it,” Jones said. He confirmed he was serving on the POST Commission Board at the time but said he never brought up Arnold’s diploma with the board.

Records on file with the POST Commission show Education Commissioner Timothy Webb sent a letter to Lt. Gov. Ramsey’s office notifying him the diploma issued to Arnold in 1995 was a valid high school specialized education diploma. Will Canterbury, an executive assistant in Ramsey’s office, contacted Webb to check on the matter in March 2010 and confirmed the diploma was valid.

Brian Grisham, executive secretary of the POST Commission, sent former Election Administrator Hooper Penuel a letter stating no changes would be made on Arnold and his name “is still certified to the ballot” as a sheriff candidate.

Ultimately, Arnold’s name went on the ballot, and he defeated Jones, a Democrat, when a Republican red tide swept across Tennessee.

On his website, Arnold says he has dyslexia, thus the special education diploma, and he discusses at great length how he and other people such as Albert Einstein and Gen. George Patton overcame the learning disability. If Jones was trying to use the special education diploma as a tool to try to remove Arnold from the ballot, the effort might have backfired. Then again, Arnold probably picked up a large number of anti-Obama votes to help him win that year.

But no matter how it played out in 2010, five years later Arnold and his buddy, Chief Administrative Deputy Joe Russell, find themselves the subject of an FBI-TBI investigation in which the sheriff’s office, their homes and the Marietta, Ga., home of John and Judy Vanderveer, Arnold’s uncle and aunt, were searched May 21. Federal agents seized boxes of documents and computers from all locations.

No charges have been filed.

What Are the Odds?

It was the first high-profile FBI raid in Murfreesboro since 2007, when federal agents hit the homes of Chad Smotherman and Chris Rowland. Rowland wound up serving a two-year sentence for laundering more than $300,000 in illicit drug money over four years.

Ironically, Sheriff Arnold submitted a character letter on behalf of Rowland in federal court. After Rowland was sentenced in 2011, Arnold said that he and Rowland were related and he wrote the letter because “I’ve had people turn their back on me when I was at my lowest, even knowing I was right in what I did at the time. I find it offensive because as Christians we are taught to forgive. He told me he did wrong. He accepted responsibility.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Harold McDonough, who prosecuted Rowland, questioned him about the letter written by Arnold, and questions also were raised about whether a $1,000 donation to Arnold’s 2010 campaign had prompted it.

“I can’t reconcile why the chief law enforcement official would write a letter on behalf of a convicted felon,” McDonough said.

Arnold refused to back away from the character letter, saying he didn’t regret it and would do it again.

Now he knows how Rowland felt for four years as he went through the federal legal gauntlet.

The Facts

Officially joined by the FBI May 21, TBI and the state Comptroller’s Office have been investigating Arnold’s administration for nearly two months following revelations that Arnold, his family and Russell are connected to a Marietta, Ga.,-based company, JailCigs, which was selling e-cigarettes to county jail inmates without a County Commission-approved contract.

Arnold, a Republican who won election to a second term last August, lists JailCigs as an investment and source of income on a financial disclosure form filed with the Tennessee Ethics Commission in January. He also lists his wife, Megan, as holding investments in JailCigs on the document, the signing of which was witnessed by Chief Deputy Randy Garrett, second in command at the office. Benefiting from a public position could be a felony offense.

JailCigs, which has since been suspended from the county jail, is owned by Arnold’s uncle and aunt, the Vanderveers, and Russell, who was Arnold’s campaign chairman and financial chief at the sheriff’s office, Georgia state documents show. They also own a company called JailSnacks.

Russell was Arnold’s next-door neighbor, but put his Osborne Lane house on the market as an owner/agent the week of the FBI raid.

The sheriff, who has declined comment for the most part during the investigation, also signed and amended other contracts without County Commission approval or the knowledge of top county officials, a violation of the county’s purchasing process and a possible misdemeanor.

• He inked a contract with Telmate, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company based in San Francisco, for an inmate pilot tablet use and services agreement in December 2014, according to documents. The tablets enable inmates to communicate with family and friends, paying a fee to use them.

• Records also show the sheriff made a contract amendment between Keefe Commissary Network and the county jail in December 2012 under which Keefe would be the “sole provider” for inmates to order products through family and friends. Keefe would put 25 percent of adjusted gross sales into a “technology fund” starting Jan. 1, 2013 for the jail to buy computer and other electronic equipment.

• Arnold approved a deal with one of the vendor’s subsidiaries to purchase tasers, lasers and holsters, bypassing the county’s purchasing procedures and without the knowledge of top county officials, records show.

• John Vanderveer also paid nearly $8,000 for 1,000 prison bags for inmates, according to documents. That order, which was not approved by county commissioners, was to be delivered to the sheriff’s office June 22.

While Rudd might cast these off as an attack by the press and Arnold’s political enemies, everything is based on documents. Most local media played kid gloves with the sheriff until these items were uncovered.

Odds are the FBI doesn’t really care what Rudd or any other politicians say or whether anyone from the media sheds Arnold in a poor light. Anyone who fails to take this seriously doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. FBI agents say they take accusations of corruption by law enforcement officials very seriously, and the agency doesn’t make a habit of swarming down on the sheriff’s office and his house without motivation.

The feds urge people to remember people are considered innocent until proven guilty. But it’s unlikely Russell and Arnold will be able to escape federal charges being filed against them. It’s not going to be pretty.

If Arnold does wind up copping a plea, this time he’ll need someone to write him a character letter. If not Rowland, then Rudd could.