An indictment was unsealed today charging the Sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia, and three other Virginia men with a conspiracy to exchange bribes for law enforcement badges and credentials, federal programs bribery, and honest services fraud. According to the indictment, from at least April 2019, Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Howard Jenkins, 51, accepted cash bribes and bribes in the form of campaign contributions totaling at least $72,500 from Rick Tariq Rahim, 55, of Great Falls, Virginia, Fredric Gumbinner, 64, of Fairfax, Virginia, James Metcalf, 60, of Manassas, Virginia, and at least five others, including two FBI undercover agents. In return, Jenkins appointed each of the bribe payors as auxiliary deputy sheriffs, a sworn law-enforcement position, and issued them Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office badges and identification cards. Jenkins told or caused others to tell the bribe payors that those law-enforcement credentials authorized them to carry concealed firearms in all fifty states without obtaining a permit. In addition, Jenkins assisted Rahim in gaining approval for a petition to restore his firearms rights filed in Culpeper County Circuit Court that falsely stated that Rahim resided in Culpeper County.
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