Gil Self, the former Lauderdale County Circuit Court judge convicted last month of 17 counts related to using his office for personal gain, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Wednesday.
“Public office is a public trust, and no one is entitled to steal from the public, especially those sworn to uphold the law,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a written statement Wednesday.
“This sentence sends a clear message that corruption will be investigated, prosecuted, and punished in Alabama, no matter the title or position of the offender, and that our office will aggressively enforce the state’s public corruption laws to hold officials accountable when they betray that trust.”
Self was convicted in November of 15 counts of abuse of public office, one count of lying to the Examiners of Public Accounts, and one count of perjury in the first degree. Sixteen of the counts are felonies.
Alabama Daily News first reported Self’s wrongdoing as outlined in two 2023 Examiners of Public Accounts audits.
In October 2023, Self, who’d been on the bench since 2009, told Alabama Daily News “sloppy” bookkeeping during the COVID-19 pandemic was to blame for two state audits that showed more than $146,000 in undocumented or unallowable expenses from two court fee-funded accounts he oversaw.
“I agree the proper bookkeeping during COVID was really virtually non-existent,” Self told ADN two years ago. “It was sloppy. We didn’t follow acceptable accounting principles, primarily because there’s no one trained or experienced in those principles here that were in charge of the books during that period of time.”
Marshall’s office had previously said some of Self’s alleged prohibited activity between early 2020 and February 2023 included reimbursing himself for a variety of vacations, including a ski trip to Montana, a beach trip, a cycling trip across three states and a trip to St. Ignace, Michigan.
He also used a judicial account to write himself checks for tuition and fees for conferences he did not attend and deposit them in his personal bank accounts when they were overdrawn.
Self was also fined $5,000.