Alabama corruption scandal leaves $100,000 in district funds to gather dust

After Alabama lawmaker John Rogers was caught misusing public money and resigned from office, nearly $100,000 earmarked to help his district gather dust.

There was no one to distribute the grant funding to schools, libraries, neighborhood associations and other nonprofits in the legislative district that Rogers represents in Birmingham and other parts of Jefferson County.

“Since the federal investigation, indictments and subsequent conclusion of the federal cases, the perpetrators have been held accountable by the justice system for their mistakes,” says a letter from Michael Brymer, attorney for the Jefferson County Community Service Fund.

“However, none of this does anything to right the wrongs of the citizens who could have benefited and used these funds to improve the 52nd District,” Brymer wrote to the Jefferson County Commission last month. “But each of you can play a small role in doing so.”

Brymer asked commissioners to return the unused $98,510 for the new district representative to distribute to the community.

For every dollar local residents and visitors spend in Jefferson County, one penny flows into the Jefferson County Community Services Fund, a pool of money for lawmakers to hand out grants to community groups.

Each state senator from Jefferson County receives approximately $243,000 and each state representative receives approximately $100,000 to distribute each year.

But when Rogers pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and resigned in March and his seat became vacant, the community services fund had to send the unspent $98,000 to the county.

Helen Hays, spokeswoman for the county commission, told AL.com that they cannot return unspent money to the fund for use by the new district representative. He said state law requires the money to go into the county’s general fund to pay for roads, sewer projects and other needs.

“The money that was left over (undisbursed) goes back into the County General Fund as per statute,” Hays said in an email. “The Jefferson County Community Service Fund will receive its funding for the upcoming fiscal year shortly.”

The Community Services Fund came under scrutiny when Rogers, his personal assistant and another state lawmaker were convicted in federal court of misusing nearly $200,000 of the funds in a bribery scheme.

Rogers had represented District 52, which includes parts of Birmingham, Fairfield, Homewood and Mountain Brook, in the Alabama House of Representatives since 1982. The district was without representation in the House for nearly seven months until Democrat Kelvin Datcher won the seat in October. 1.

“Every member of the committee wanted to explore every possible opportunity to find a way for the cities, schools and organizations in House District 52, and by extension, its citizens, to be able to achieve the same benefit as all other House districts have achieved this past fiscal year,” Brymer wrote in the letter to the county commission dated Sept. 24. “After all, the poor choices of a few should not endanger the citizens of the 52nd District.”

Federal prosecutors said that between 2019 and April 2023, Rogers directed about $400,000 in public funds out of the community service fund to the Piper Davis Youth Baseball League, which was operated by Rep. Fred Plump.

Plump sent nearly $200,000 of that money to Rogers’ assistant, Varrie Johnson Kindall, according to court records, and then deposited the money into a personal bank account for her and Rogers to use for payments to credit card and mortgage.

All three were sentenced to federal prison. Rogers began his 13-month sentence after Labor Day. Johnson Kindall began his three-year sentence in August.

Plump, who began serving a one-year sentence in August, was the first to plead guilty and resign from office in May 2023.

But his district did not suffer a lapse in community funding.

Five months after Plump resigned, Travis Hendrix was elected to the District 55 seat. Since then, he has allocated the full $98,510 to 21 recipients in parts of Birmingham and Fairfield, according to website records from the bottom This included two middle schools and one high school, Lawson State Community College, four public libraries, AIDS Alabama and Birmingham AIDS Outreach, and workshops for single mothers and victims of domestic violence.

According to state law, funds may go to the following recipients:

• public schools, roads, museums, libraries, zoos, parks, neighborhood associations, sports facilities, youth sports associations, sidewalks, trails or greenways;
• performing arts;
• nonprofits that have received funding from United Way of Central Alabama in the past 12 months;
• police and fire departments and the sheriff’s office; i
• assistance programs for low-income residents using the county’s public sanitary sewer system.

Prosecutors also said Rogers and Johnson Kindall diverted more public funds to themselves through another local nonprofit in 2019. According to court records, Rogers diverted $10,000 to the nonprofit profit and its founder returned $1,800 to Rogers and Johnson Kindall. Rogers later publicly identified the founder, whose nonprofit was not named in court records, as George Stewart. Stewart is the founder and director of the American Gospel Quartet Convention.

During the most recent funding cycle, the community service fund committee rejected a request for $10,000 in funding for the gospel quartet, fund records show. The meeting minutes do not indicate which lawmaker recommended funding the group.

Brymer told AL.com that the request was denied because “it was unclear how the citizens of Jefferson County would benefit from the intended use.”