Former Harrison County Sheriff Joe Price believes he's a target in an ongoing federal investigation into a now-defunct inmate vocational program.
U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott confirmed the ongoing probe last week. 'I can confirm that the subject matter for which . . . former deputies were convicted is an ongoing federal investigation,' Pigott said. 'I can't indicate one way or the other about who might or might not be charged.'
Price's attorney, Albert Necaise, said FBI agents are trying to get information on his client from former deputies already convicted of crimes related to the inmate vocational program. A jury found that the two deputies defrauded the federal government to justify salaries they were paid to teach inmates vocations.
'I know they've tried to make deals with other folks,' Necaise said recently. 'I don't think they've got anything to indict Joe Price on. I think Joe Price's career as a law enforcement officer is clean as a hound's tooth.'
But during a federal trial that ended in October and resulted in the convictions of former jail Warden Bruce Carver Sr. and former Deputy Edmund J. Huguet Sr., prosecutors identified Price as a co-conspirator in the scam to use inmates for free labor instead of giving them an education.  Two other former deputies, Roy Kiahnell Smith and Jimmy W. McKay, pleaded guilty before trial. From 1992 until 1998, the four deputies received more than half a million dollars in taxpayer-funded salaries.
All four deputies are scheduled for sentencing in April. Necaise said it's unusual for sentencing to be six months after a trial.
'That's not but for one reason and one reason only,' Necaise said. 'Tell us something on Joe Price. They figured Carver and Price were close. If they put the squeeze on Carver, he would tell something on Joe Price. That's what they're going to try to do.'
Price said during an interview last week he knew he was a target of an investigation.
At trial, witnesses, including other former instructors, testified that Carver, Price and other top department officials ordered them to give phony grades to inmates and to put on a 'dog and pony show' for federal inspectors when they scheduled visits. The instructors would set up classrooms, complete with desks and study materials and a slew of inmates.
School records, however, showed that some inmates were not even in jail when they were supposed to be attending classes.
The vocational program, which was supposed to train and educate inmates for occupations, was started in the 1980s by the late Sheriff Larkin Smith. Price continued the program, which was run through a partnership between the Sheriff's Department, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and the state Department of Education, when he took office in 1989.
Two years later, former Deputy Guy Havard wrote state investigators to tell them that the entire vocational program was bogus. In fact, he said, the deputy instructors were nothing more than supervisors for inmate work crews.
But it wasn't until 1999 that federal investigators had enough information to charge the former deputy instructors. Prosecutors also said free inmate labor was used as a 'political show horse' for Price.
Price said that simply is not true.