The lawyer for Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey defended the sheriff’s use of trusties on his family’s chicken farm, saying it was part of an inmate work program authorized by statute. But four trusties who said they worked at the farm were released from the Rankin County Detention Center before 2021, when the only statute governing a work program for jail inmates was passed.
Mississippi Today and The New York Times reported in a joint investigation Thursday that Bailey allegedly used inmates under his supervision to spray weedkiller, cut grass and muck out chicken houses on McLain Farms, owned by Bailey’s mother. Former trusties said they were expected to keep that work secret.
In a statement released Thursday to a few local news organizations, the lawyer, Jason Dare, acknowledged that trusted inmates, known as trusties, had worked on the farm, but insisted they were always paid “according to statute.”…