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FBI seeking records for city, fire
department
Bank to supply missing VFD records
By Pearl Cantrell
Monitor Staff Writer
SEVEN POINTS–No one seems to know why federal agents have issued
subpoenas for the City of Seven Points’ financial records and those of
the Seven Points Volunteer Fire Department, but there is a lot of
speculation.
A July 15 Athens Daily Review article by Art Lawler on the investigation
seems to suggest a number of other incidents, occurring in the last two
months, may have some bearing on the case.
“It’s unfortunate that just when subpoenas appear, boxes of important
(fire department) records go missing,” assistant fire chief and mayor
Gerald Taylor told The Monitor.
The fire department received a clean audit in 2008 on financial records
covering 2006-07, Taylor said.
“All those records were in banker’s boxes, tied closed, and in the fire
chief’s office up until recently,” he said.
Taylor doesn’t seem worried about the FBI investigation, and speculates
the agents are most likely responding to a complaint that FEMA funds
from 2006 may have been wrongfully transferred from the city to the fire
department.
Once a review of the financial records are complete, Taylor is confident
the city will be justified in the expenditures of FEMA funds, if that is
what the FBI is looking for, he said.
The First National Bank of Kemp, where the fire department keeps its
accounts, has been asked to reproduce the banking records in response to
the subpoena.
As of Wednesday, the bank was still processing that request, Taylor
said.
That same day, city secretary Debbie Mosley delivered the city’s
financial records (under subpoena) to the city’s Tyler attorney for
review before handing them over to the FBI.
Dobbs received a subpoena by mail the week after the Independence Day
holiday. Taylor, as assistant chief, offered to fetch the records from
the chief’s office, which had been cleaned out and painted the weekend
before by a community service work crew, under Dobbs’ supervision.
At that time, Dobbs moved some records to the equipment storage unit,
which also houses Bubba Powell’s office. Powell is responsible for the
fire department’s portable equipment. He is the only one with a key.
Dobbs later told police chief Tim Meadows that he removed the
air-conditioner to get into the building.
As fire chief, Dobbs said he has authority over any fire department
property and buildings, arguing that it wasn’t a break-in.
Further, Dobbs said he didn’t see those boxes in his office the few
weeks he has been chief.
In any case, he is not worried about what may come of the investigation,
since he wasn’t in charge of those financial transactions.
When Taylor reported to Dobbs that certain boxes were missing, Dobbs
called the FBI with that information.
The FBI came out the same afternoon (July 10) and pulled the hard drive
from the computer used by the fire department.
The FBI doesn’t seem all that concerned about the missing boxes, Dobbs
said, since the bank is providing the requested banking records from its
files.
The Department of Justice grand jury investigation reportedly is
centered only on information at this point and not on any individuals.
No charges have been made, Dobbs reported.
The subpoena gave an Aug. 4 deadline for receiving the records.
Police arrest murder suspect
Monitor Staff Reports
SEAGOVILLE–The Seagoville Police have a suspect in custody in connection
with a stabbing death which occured July 13.
Dustin Lee Brooks, 33, was arrested on a murder warrant in Johnson
County at about 4 a.m. Thursday, according to a press release.
Brooks is the suspect in the death of a 41-year-old Seagoville man with
ties to Kemp.
Seagoville Police entered Brooks’ license plate and vehicle description
into a national database, so when Johnson County deputies ran the plate,
they were alerted to the warrant.
Brooks was taken into custody without incident and awaited transfer to
Dallas County. Bond has been set at $250,000.
A confrontation between the Brooks and the resident of a Bell Street
address resulted in the stabbing, according to witnesses.
The victim, whose name is being witheld at the request of the family,
was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, a
press release stated.
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