Not three months after Bill Rogers accepted an appointment as Columbus County sheriff, he received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in Raleigh.
At the center of the investigation was his predecessor as the county’s top law enforcement officer, Jody Greene. Rogers had known Greene most of his life—first as schoolmates, then as a fellow state trooper. He’d long counted Greene as a friend; they even vacationed together. When the legitimacy of Greene’s first election as sheriff was challenged in 2018 over questions about where he truly lived, Rogers went to the county Board of Elections hearing and sat in the first row.
But in September 2022, as Rogers was preparing to retire from the Highway Patrol and focus on the six hog houses and thousands of acres of corn and beans he owns with his brother in Evergreen, the Wilmington TV station WECT published a recording of a phone call Greene made to a sheriff’s office employee while that earlier election was in limbo. In the call, Greene complained about the legal fees that were mounting as he fought to clinch a victory over Columbus County’s first Black sheriff and vowed to fire Black deputies, whom he called “Black bastards” and “snakes.”
As it became clear that Greene was at risk of criminal charges stemming from his conduct as sheriff, county leaders named Rogers to take his place. The two men whose families once smiled together in photographs stopped talking.
Rogers still hasn’t listened to the recording, and based on his long experience with Greene, he doesn’t believe the former sheriff is racist. But he worries that the investigations set off by the recording will continue to hang over Columbus County like a “dark cloud.”
Greene’s problems have only multiplied in the last year as what began as a probe into racial discrimination has expanded into a federal and state investigation of misuse of power and political intimidation. The ballooning case has called to mind a past federal probe into the seamy intersection of law enforcement, politics, and crime in this southeastern county of just 50,000: Colcor.
The Assembly and the Border Belt Independent have found that dozens of people have testified in front of the grand jury that summoned Rogers to Raleigh.
Read more: Clouds Over Columbus County
Benjamin Schachtman: Alright, Carly and Sarah, thank you for being here. Carli, this piece centers around former Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene. At the beginning of this year, District Attorney Jon David tried to remove Greene, but he resigned — but is still being investigated. For people who somehow have ot been following this story, can you give us some background?
Carli Brosseau: Jody Greene came to kind of national prominence about a year ago when WECT in Wilmington published part of a recording of a phone call made a year prior, in which Greene referred to black deputies of the sheriff's office in Columbus County as “black bastards” and “snakes.” And since then, there's been several investigations into how he's conducted himself in the sheriff's office and how some of his deputies have also conducted themselves.
BS: And in addition to some of the allegations of racist comments he made, there was also some evidence that he had bullied or intimidated people in Columbus County, including county leaders.
CB: Yes, there are definitely allegations of intimidation of county leaders. County commissioners described calls in which they were yelled at, often late at night. There are also at least a couple of cases in which there was an arrest made of somebody who was a perceived political opponent. One of those people was [Giles] Buddy Byrd who's a county commissioner and a Democrat – so from the opposing political party.
BS: So after Jon David's investigation, there is now a federal investigation. And Sarah, this is fairly hush-hush, but you were able to find out a little bit about what's going on here.
SN: So what we know so far is that several people have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Raleigh. The line of questioning, of course, we're not super familiar with — grand jury testimony in federal cases happens behind closed doors. But we know some of the people who have been subpoenaed are Ricky Bullard, chairman of the [Columbus] County Commission, the police chief in the town of Fair Bluff, some other county commissioners — so we know that at this point.
BS: And Carly, in your reporting, you look at some historical similarities between this investigation and something called ColCor — or Columbus Corruption. What can you tell us about that?
CB: ColCor was a sting operation in the early 80s that was conducted by the FBI. It was started by actually somebody the FBI had worked with on other cases, moving to the area, and trying to open a business and coming into all sorts of problems with local authorities and learning while he was in jail – that this is the kind of place where payoffs were expected. And so from that tip, the FBI operated a couple of businesses, one in Lake Waccamaw, one in Whiteville. Over the time they were operating, they got all sorts of offers to do illicit things and also made proposals to do illegal things such as fixing an election for ‘liquor by the drink’ and Bolton. In the end about more than 40 people, 40 about 45 people, faced charges stemming from that investigation. And they included people as high on the political totem pole as the lieutenant governor, they included a county commissioner, a judge, other locals – there was also a police chief who was indicted as part of that as well.
BS: And in your reporting, ColCor has come up pretty explicitly.
CS: It came up in talking to both supporters of Jody Greene and opponents of Jody Greene at different parts of the reporting process. I was in Columbus County in 2018 when Jody Greene’s first election was challenged, and during a county Board of Elections hearing about whether he was truly a resident of the county for the purposes of the election, it first came to my attention when one of his supporters stood up and yelled “Shame, shame, shame” at the end of the meeting. And I asked him why. And he first brought ColCor to my attention. And since then you hear people like Buddy Byrd, one of the county commissioners who was an opponent of Jody Greene, saying things like “ColCor wasn't nothing compared to this.”
BS: So before I let you go, you spoke to District Attorney Jon David, who wrote I think what we could fairly call an incendiary synopsis of some of the allegations against Jody Greene. What does he have to say about where the case is right now?
SN: He has very little to say — I caught him on the phone. And, you know, he said that, that he simply can't talk about it while the investigation is ongoing. That leaves a lot of questions for Carli and me — and for everybody who lives in Columbus County about what might happen in terms of a state investigation if there will be one. You know, I think one of the biggest lingering questions is, you know, if Jody Greene gets indicted, say if other people within the Sheriff's Office get indicted, what does that mean for past convictions made by the Sheriff’s Office.
BS: A very good question and I assume one you will be asking in the future but for now Carli Brousseau and Sarah Nagem, thank you so much for your time.
CB: Thank you very much.
SN: Thank you so much.
