United States v. Bright

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge.

Harvey Hamilton was elected sheriff of DeSoto County, Mississippi in the 1975 general election. His campaign symbol was a white hat; he campaigned on a platform of honesty and integrity, pledging to “clean up” the county if elected. Nothing could have been further from his true intent or subsequent actions. From his taking office in January, 1976, to his indictment by a federal grand jury in late 1977, Hamilton ran the county as his own fiefdom, extorting payoffs and accepting bribes not to perform the duties he was elected to perform. As is generally the case when a…