Dorsey exploited position, jury told

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Posted 10:44PM on Wednesday, June 19, 2002

ALBANY - Sidney Dorsey used his position as DeKalb County sheriff to force people to do his bidding, a jury was told on the second day of his trial. Shirley McMichael, owner of Speedy Bonding Co., tearfully testified Wednesday that Dorsey assaulted her in a vacant house in 1997. ``He was basically saying that nothing was free, and that I didn't know him before then and I didn't campaign for him so that it was time to pay the fiddler,'' she said. McMichael said she did not report the assault because ``he was the sheriff and I didn't know what would happen and I was devastated.'' She said Dorsey, who is accused of racketeering and the murder of his elected successor, extorted sex and thousands of dollars in cash from her, holding his power to ruin her bonding business as leverage. In later testimony, McMichael said she wore a wire for investigators, but Dorsey somehow knew. She also said Dorsey indicated Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown, shot to death Dec. 15, 2000, would not occupy the office he had won from Dorsey that August. ``He said, 'Derwin will not be there,' '' McMichael said. She said Dorsey made a gun with his hand and pointed his index finger at his temple. McMichael, 40, testified that Dorsey demanded sex from her ``lots'' of times in DeKalb hotels and at her Stone Mountain home. She said she presented evidence to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in 2000, after Dorsey was out of office, but before the murder. Jurors also heard from Dorsey employees who testified they carted around the former sheriff and members of his family during his tenure. Noah Heimlich, fleet coordinator for the DeKalb sheriff's department, said he ran frequent out-of-town errands for the Dorseys, including driving Dorsey and his wife to New York City in a new, county-owned GMC Suburban. ``I felt I was given an order to do and so I did it,'' Heimlich said. Other officers testified that they also chauffeured the family, picking up Dorsey's children from school and taking his wife to Durham, N.C. in Dorsey's Lexus. Dorsey, 63, could get life in prison without parole if convicted of murdering Derwin Brown, who was gunned down three days before he was to take office. He had beaten Dorsey in a hotly contested election months earlier. Prosecutors claim Dorsey ordered the killing in hopes of forcing a special election. The case against Dorsey is based almost entirely on the testimony of two of his former associates who have said they carried out the slaying. The trial was moved from Decatur to Albany, 150 miles south because of heavy pretrial news coverage.