Former Cop, Convicted Embezzler Arrested on DUI Charge


A former Bartow County Sheriff's Office captain who has spent a year in federal prison found himself Saturday on the wrong side of the law, again.

Brenton James Garmon, now 41, pleaded guilty in May 2008 to embezzling more than $80,000 of funds seized by BCSO's Narcotics unit, which he headed from about 2004 to 2007, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 

Garmon, then 36, who used some of the money to stop foreclosure proceedings on his home, was sentenced to serve a year and a month in federal prison.

He was released in May 2009, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and was to be supervised for the following three years. The current Aquafil employee also was ordered to repay $80,493.78 to the sheriff's office.

In an unrelated incident, a sheriff's deputy Saturday about 12:30 a.m. spotted the blue 1994 Ford Ranger driven by Garmon. He allegedly failed to stop for a stop sign at Peeples Valley and Cass-White roads, and was pulled over.

Garmon allegedly smelled of alcohol, and said he had been drinking since 10 a.m. Friday, consuming about six beers, and had just drank a beer shortly before leaving his home, according to the BCSO report, above.

A breath test for the presence of alcohol performed on Garmon registered 0.98. He was arrested and charged with DUI and failure to obey a stop sign, and has since bonded out of jail