By Connor Sheets
March 13, 2018
In September, Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin and his wife Karen purchased an orange four-bedroom house with an in-ground pool and canal access in an upscale section of Orange Beach for $740,000. To finance the purchase, Entrekin got a $592,000 mortgage from Peoples Bank of Alabama, according to public real estate records. The home is one of several properties with a total assessed value of more than $1.7 million that the couple own together or separately in Etowah and Baldwin counties. Some Etowah County residents question how a county sheriff making a five-figure annual salary can afford to own multiple houses, including one worth nearly three-quarters of a million dollars. But ethics disclosure forms Entrekin filed with the state reveal that over the past three years he has received more than $750,000 worth of additional "compensation" from a source he identified as "Food Provisions." Entrekin did not deny that he received the money when asked about it via email last week. Ethics forms he filed in previous years do not list any income from such a source. Entrekin told AL.com last month that he has a personal account that he refers to as his "Food Provision" fund.
"In regards to feeding of inmates, we utilize a registered dietitian to ensure adequate meals are provided daily," Entrekin said Sunday via email. Many Alabama sheriffs contend that the practice of keeping "excess" inmate-feeding funds for themselves is legal under a state law passed before World War II. Entrekin reported on forms he filed with the Alabama Ethics Commission that he made "more than $250,000" each of the past three years via the inmate-feeding funds. Meanwhile, Entrekin's annual salary as sheriff is $93,178.80, according to Jeff Little, human resources director for the Etowah County Commission. Entrekin and his wife Karen - who worked for years as a probation officer and met her husband in the Etowah County Sheriff's Office, according to a profile by the Alabama Republican Party that described the sheriff as a "rising Republican star" - own several properties in Etowah County and two others in Orange Beach. The $740,000 Orange Beach home is the most expensive of their properties, but they also own a second single-family house in Orange Beach that was assessed at $200,900 in October 2016, according to Baldwin County real estate records.