Former Cornelia assistant fire chief Shane Bentley now faces legal trouble in two counties following his arrest earlier his month in Habersham.
The GBI announced Tuesday that agents arrested Bentley on February 2 and charged him with one count each of first-degree forgery and theft by taking. The GBI got involved with the investigation when the Cornelia Police Department asked for help after identifying an alleged forgery.
According to the arrest warrant, on July 19, 2021, Bentley allegedly submitted a forged document that was used to obtain thirty-five sets of firefighter turnout gear from the Sandy Springs Fire Department. Authorities also accused Bentley of taking eighteen sets of turnout gear donated to the Demorest Fire Department on July 2, 2021. That gear was valued at around $1800.
“The items that were donated were not all accounted for after a Cornelia Fire Department inventory,” says GBI spokesperson Natalie Ammons.
On September 12, 2022, Cornelia Fire Chief Billy Joe Jenkins fired Bentley. Bentley challenged the decision and, after an administrative hearing, was allowed to resign from his job as assistant fire chief. At his departure, Bentley had been with the Cornelia Fire Department for just over four years.
24-count indictment in Franklin County
Bentley also faces legal trouble in Franklin County, where he worked as the Lavonia Volunteer Fire Department assistant chief.
In 2020, Bentley was arrested and charged with four counts of theft by taking following an investigation by the GBI Athens Office. Initially, Northern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Parks White filed accusations against Bentley. The following year, in June 2021, a grand jury indicted Bentley on those four counts plus twenty more.
All the charges in the 24-count indictment relate to approximately $19,000 in purchases Bentley made as Lavonia’s assistant fire chief between August 2018 and April 2020. Fourteen of the purchases were for amounts over $500, which under state law, could be prosecuted as felonies.
Although employed by Cornelia at the time of his Franklin County arrest, Bentley kept his job in Cornelia. City Manager Dee Anderson issued a statement following his arrest, saying that since the allegations against Bentley did not involve the city of Cornelia, “No action is being considered at this time.”
Bearers of the Oath
The charges leveled against Bentley in both Franklin and Habersham are related to a fire training company he owns called Bearers of the Oath. Indications are that Bentley may have used some of the purchased and donated items to support that fire school.
Cornelia Public Safety Director Chad Smith asked the city’s police chief Jonathan Roberts to conduct an internal investigation to determine whether Bentley “double dipped” by being paid by the city while receiving money through Bearears of the Oath, a non-registered, non-licensed company which Bentley told Chief Roberts he operated out of his home in Stephens County.
Conference fees and merchandise payments went directly into Bentley’s personal bank account, according to the internal investigation report Now Habersham obtained through an open records request.
Between 2010 and 2020, Bentley says his organization trained over 200 mostly volunteer firefighters. He told Chief Roberts the money he received covered expenses and he did not make any money off the enterprise.
Any “profit,” he said, was “donated to a cause.”
Bentley says the fire school raised the profile of both fire departments and that city officials were aware of the work he was doing.
Following his arrest in Habersham County, Bentley was released from jail on a $3,500 bond.
Once the GBI Cleveland Office completes its investigation, it will turn over the case to the Mountain Judicial Circuit for prosecution, says Ammons. The Northern Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s office says its case against Bentley remains active.
