A West Tennessee prosecutor has requested a state investigation into a Memphis senator who allegedly violated state law by posting documents containing a defendant’s personal information online, presumably after obtaining the information from the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office.
District Attorney Fred Agee confirmed to Tennessee Lookout that he has filed a complaint with the Comptroller’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, asking them to investigate whether Republican Senator Brent Taylor posted information on X (formerly known as Twitter) that showed a man’s birth date and social security number. This would be a Class B misdemeanor punishable by nearly six months in prison.
Agee, a Republican whose prosecutorial district includes Crockett, Haywood and Gibson counties, requested the appointment of an interim prosecutor to investigate the matter. He said the articles had been posted online for at least 10 hours.
“Given the identity theft that occurs on a daily basis, I felt compelled to report it and also to request a special prosecutor since (Taylor’s) social media post was directed against me,” Agee told Lookout.
Taylor responded to questions via text message on Tuesday, saying he released the public records “for the benefit” of voters and West Tennesseans to show an example of the “outrageous deals” Agee is making. He reiterated his claim that Agee and Mulroy are “soft on crime.”
“When I discovered that one of the dozens of documents that had been passed around more often than a joint at a Willie Nelson concert might contain a Social Security number, I quickly replaced it with newly redacted documents out of an abundance of caution,” Taylor said.
As part of the discovery request, Agee said, he asked state investigators to look into whether the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office shared the information with Taylor. Separately, Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas was charged with transferring inmates to an outside company he owned as part of a $1.4 million scheme.
The situation stems in part from an op-ed Agee wrote for the Daily Memphian on Aug. 6 in support of Shelby County Attorney General Steve Mulroy. Mulroy is a Democrat who has been accused of being too soft on crime and who has been threatened with impeachment by Taylor and House Speaker Cameron Sexton. Taylor has said he will introduce a bill in the next legislative session to remove Mulroy from office.
Taylor released documents over the past two weeks to portray Agee as a liberal prosecutor, detailing a plea agreement between Agee’s office and Brewston Lamonte Cole, who was convicted of multiple DUIs, drug possession, weapons possession, sex offender registry violations and probation violations. Cole was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but the sentence was suspended by Community Corrections for probation or supervision. He has already served nearly four months in jail after his bail was revoked and will receive a harsher sentence if he fails to comply with probation.
As part of this post, Taylor provided three Google Drive links that Agreement document It included Cole’s birthday and social security number. The Lookout obtained screenshots of Taylor’s posts and these links. These have since been removed and the documents republished without the personal data.
The State Audit Office declined to confirm that it had been tasked with investigating the matter.
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