Columbus County sheriff-elect scheduled to be sworn in

December 28, 2022

Celeste Smith,

WHITEVILLE, NC (WWAY) — Sheriff-elect Jody Greene is expected to be sworn into office soon, with the county’s board of elections anticipating his certificate of election to be issued by Thursday, December 29.

Jody Greene’s swearing-in ceremony is scheduled at 8:30am on Thursday.

In October, Greene resigned as sheriff during a petition for removal hearing over alleged racist remarks he made. Greene’s name was still on the ballot for the November election, and he was elected.

He was scheduled to be sworn-in on December 5th, but election protesters filed two petitions against the results. Both were denied. Appeals were then filed with the state elections board, they were also both dismissed.

An appeal of that decision has been filed with the Wake County Superior Court, but at this point Columbus County Elections has not received any decision that would prevent it from issuing Greene’s certificate of election.

“As of right now, the certificate will be released to Jody Greene on December 29, 2022. As long as the state does not –or the court does not put a order on in to hold it, but as of right now everything is on a go for him to be able to receive that certificate in the morning,” said Ashley Collins, Columbus County Board of Elections Director.

The Columbus County NAACP is still in opposition to Greene taking office again as Columbus County Sheriff.

“If he is sworn in, we still think that he is unfit to serve as sheriff of Columbus County, because of his past actions, statements everybody knows, and it’s –of course we’ve got an FBI, SBI, and all these investigations of the sheriff’s department for dealings that happened in the last four years or so that he’s been in office,” said Curtis Hill, Columbus County NAACP president.

District Attorney Jon David announced after Greene resigned that if Greene was to be re-elected, the DA’s office had “An ethical obligation to file, and will file, a new petition to remove Greene based on the allegations alleged in the first petition to remove.