Logan Stout in State Prison Despite His "Buying" His Way Out; Former Sheriff Up on Charges, Dec. 27, 1923

A Former Sheriff Said Was Bribed

News and Observer

Twelve months overdue and still a little perplexed at the failure of dollar diplomacy to work effectively, Logan Stout, Avery county blockader, arrived at the State Prison yesterday morning to serve a sentence of 18 months, which period will include the time it will take him to go back home and testify against a former sheriff of the county and two of his deputies on charges of accepting bribes.

Stout says he thought he had everything fixed when he paid Deputy Sheriff Oaks $300 to forget to bring him to prison last December and if present Sheriff Pat Vance had not caught Stout wandering the hills of Avery when he ought to have been breaking rock somewhere, things would have been altogether to his liking. He was very much surprised when sheriff Vance hooted at his claim that he had bought himself out.

Deputy Oakes readily confessed when confronted with the charge that he had accepted $300 from Stout with the assurance that nothing more would be said about his case. He elaborated his confession to involve the former sheriff and another former deputy of participating in the division of the bribe. Sheriff Vance, who came into office not long after the trade was made, arrested the whole outfit, former sheriff, two deputies and blockader, bound over the peace officers and brought Stout to Raleigh yesterday.

Avery went through a political upheaval in 1922, and an entirely new set of county officers was brought into office. The former sheriff and all his deputies were sent off into oblivion from which only the apprehension of Stout and his subsequent confession that he had given bribes brought them. They are being held for trial at a session of court early in 1924, and Stout will be taken back to Avery to testify against them.

The blockader claims that he didn’t pay the $300 as a bribe, but on the assurance of the deputy who was about to bring him to Raleigh that such a such of money would square him with the courts, wipe out the prison sentence and pay all costs. He went back to the hills to pursue his profession, and it was there that Sheriff Vance caught him.

From the front page of the Mooresville Enterprise, December 27, 1923. Deputy sheriff's last name spelled Oaks on first reference and Oakes on second reference in the newspaper.