They say crime doesn’t pay, but it is costly.
Warren County taxpayers will have to foot an $80,000 bill to hold the four Coffee County juveniles who admitted to their role in the murder of a local man Tuesday during a botched robbery in Mt. Leo.
According to county Finance Department director Linda Hillis, the four juveniles are being held at Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center and the cost will be $175 a day, per individual, until each turns 18.
“I’m sure you are aware that we had a murder that took place Tuesday,” said Hillis during a meeting held Thursday. “Four of those arrested were juveniles. We have to pay to house them. I talked with Barry Dishman at juvenile court and all four of these juveniles are in detention at $175 a day each. We tried to figure out an estimate on how much it will cost and we’ve come up with about $80,000 to hold the four.”
The underage individuals are Sam Brinkley, Charles Guess, Malik Scott and Melvin Horn. As each turns 18, they will be relocated from juvenile detention in Rutherford County to adult detention at Warren County Jail.
Currently, the county has $37,000 in its juvenile account. While there is a $43,000 difference in the amounts, the entire $37,000 cannot be dedicated to these four because that will leave nothing for the other cases of juveniles being held in detention.
“We do have about $37,000 left in our juvenile account but this is in addition to the ones we are normally housing in juvenile detention,” said Hillis. “We are going to have to come up with some money. I wanted to give you a heads-up."
The information was presented to both county Financial Management Committee and Budget and Finance Committee members on Thursday.
Hillis said she would review the county’s budget and come back to committee members with suggestions on funding.