Douglas Lee Patterson, a district court judge in the 39th Judicial Circuit in Limestone County, is under arrest after being indicted on charges of use of official position or office for personal gain, financial exploitation of the elderly in the first degree, and theft of property in the third degree.
State Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the indictment on Thursday. Patterson has been suspended from serving as a district court. His cases had been previously reassigned to other judges during the investigation.
The AG’s office says that certain Limestone County judicial officials and employees alerted the office when they found evidence of the alleged misconduct and cooperated fully, leading to a special grand jury which returned the three-count indictment.
According to the AG’s office, the first count—use of official position or office for personal gain—arises from Patterson’s service as a district court judge, which includes his supervising the County’s juvenile court system. It charges that Patterson used his position as a judge to obtain $47,008.24 from the County’s Juvenile Court Services Fund. That fund, created pursuant to statute, permits money to be expended “solely for juvenile programs, for subsistence for the juvenile court staff in Limestone County, to aid the functions of the juvenile court and for the benefit of the children of Limestone County.”
The second count charges financial exploitation of the elderly in the first degree. It alleges Patterson breached a fiduciary duty to Mr. Charles Hardy to obtain all of or a portion of $47,800 of Hardy’s conservatorship account’s money.
The third count—theft of property in the third degree—charges that Patterson knowingly obtained or exerted unauthorized control over or knowingly obtained by deception control over a sum of money that exceeded $499 but was less than $1,500 and that belonged to the estate of Rudolph Allen.
If convicted, the first two charges are Class B felonies punishable by two to twenty years in prison and a fine of up to $30,000 each. The theft charge is a Class D felony punishable by a year and one day or up to five years in prison and a fine up to $7,500.
Read the complete announcement with details of the state’s investigation below.
WZDX is working to obtain a copy of the indictment. Patterson’s bond was set at $30,000.
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