Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Shady Politician is in Prison Now - The Sidney Dorsey Story

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Sidney Dorsey, once the elected sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia, slid from power into infamy after a bitter 2000 election he lost to challenger Derwin Brown. Investigators later uncovered that Dorsey, desperate to keep control of the department and shield himself from internal corruption probes, orchestrated a murder plot targeting Brown before he could take office.

So this guy doesn't want to lose his election, so he just straight up kills his opponent. Now the guy's name is Sydney and Sydney is 57 when the story starts and he's living in DeKob County, Georgia. But here's the thing about Sydney. He thinks he's above the law. He works as a homicide detective and he's the kind of crooked cop who will kill a suspect and then claim that he wasn't at fault. In fact, he's been involved in two deaths while on duty and he was never punished for either of them. And so one day, around 1996, Sidney decides that he wants even more power, and he's going to run for county sheriff. So he runs, and they have the election, and wouldn't you know it, he wins, and he becomes

the first black man to hold the position in that county. So now, Sydney is in charge of one of the largest county jails in the United States, with over 700 employees. That's a lot of responsibility. But as soon as he takes office, he starts abusing his power. And when I say this dude is corrupt, I mean this dude is corrupt. Like he'll order his deputies to go pick up his kids from school every day. He'll order them to accompany him and his family on like a trip to Disney World. Like they're his personal chauffeur. He'll use the in-house lawyer for his own personal legal issues.

If his kids' cars break down in a neighboring state, he'll instruct the county employees to drive out and repair them. You know, shit that a sheriff is not supposed to be ordering his employees to do. Oh, and it doesn't stop with the county staff. Sydney also exploits inmates in the county jail as well. Like he'll assign inmates to do manual labor at other people's houses and stuff, and the dude is just not running this jail well at all. Like the inmates aren't getting adequate medical care,

conditions even get so bad that multiple inmates file lawsuits against, against him. And none of that is even the most corrupt thing that he does. At some point, along the way, Sidney starts taking bribes. Plus, he's known to force women who work under him to smash with him. I mean, you get it. The sheriff is not a stand-up guy. But he doesn't seem to care. He's going to do whatever he wants. And this behavior goes on for years. In fact, it's going so well for him that once Sydney's tenure is almost over, he decides to run for re-election. And in the year 2000, that's exactly what he does. And that is where this guy comes in, Derwin.

Derwin is also a veteran law enforcement officer, and he seems to be well liked in the area. And from a distance, he's been watching how Sydney runs the Sheriff's Department and the county jail, and he doesn't like it one bit. And he can see that there's a lot of corruption going on. and he's determined to change all of that. So he decides to run for county sheriff too, against Sydney. So he gets to work and he starts campaigning. And he's promising that if he gets elected,

he's going to investigate and fire all the corrupt officers in that sheriff's department. And surprisingly, this works. Election day comes and Derwin actually wins. And so poor Sydney, now he knows he's fucked. Not only will he be out of a job soon, but once Derwin takes over, he's going to start investigating the whole department, and that investigation could land him in prison. And he's not about to let that happen. In fact, he doesn't want to leave his position at all.

He won't stay sheriff for another four years. And that is when he gets an idea. What if he were to murder Derwin? And that would then trigger another election, and then he would probably win his job back. and that is exactly what he's about to try and do. He's going to try and kill Derwin. So it's still the year 2000. And Derwin, he's been elected sheriff,

but he hasn't officially taken office yet. So Sidney is still technically in charge. So then one day, Sydney links up with this guy, Patrick. And Patrick is one of his deputies, and he's just a shady dude. So Sidney invites Patrick over to his house, and there he hands him a piece of paper with instructions on it to murder Derwin. I'm not sure why he didn't just verbally give him these instructions, but okay.

Now, like I said, Patrick, he's a shady guy. But he's not a professional hitman. He's never done this before. So internally, he starts freaking out. I mean, he knows that if something goes wrong, he'll be the only one to get busted, and he doesn't want that. So he tells Sidney, oh, I can't do this hit alone. And Sidney's like, okay, I'll get you three other guys to help.

So Patrick contacts three of Sydney's former employees, and he brings them in to the assassination plot. And soon he meets with these three goons, and he explains the whole plan to murder Derwin and everything, and that Sidney has promised that if they assassinate him, that he will then give them whatever positions they want in the sheriff's department once he gets back into power. And the three goons hear this plan, and they're like, Hi. And they start stalking Durwin and watching his movements and monitoring his home. and where he goes when he leaves, because they're waiting for the right moment to catch him vulnerable. However, none of these guys are built to be a hitman.

As I said, they work in the sheriff's department. They're not hired assassins. So they keep dragging their feet on this murder. It seems like they just can't decide when to do it. And three months go by. And the job still isn't done. And by this point, Derwin is just three days away from being sworn in as the new sheriff. So Sidney knows it's now or never. If this hit is going to happen, it needs to happen right away because once Derwin takes office, Sydney could be investigated and ultimately arrested and

put in jail. So Sydney starts to panic and he lets Patrick know that this shooting has to happen tonight. So that evening, Patrick and the other three goons, they drive over to Derwin's house and they get there and three of the guys get out and they wait in the darkness for Derwin to come home. And soon enough, he does. He pulls up into his driveway, and then he steps out of his car. Right when he steps out, the three men jump out and blam, blam, blam. One of the guys shoots him 12 times. And unfortunately, Derwin doesn't survive.

Then, Patrick and the three goons, they flee the scene. Later, of course, local police are called and they step in and they start investigating all of this. And pretty quickly, they begin looking into Derwin's political opponent, Sydney. The problem is that they don't have any hard evidence tying him directly to the murder. And so ultimately, the case ends up going cold. Until. A few months go by, and it's now 2001. And Patrick's shady ass is at his home.

And there is apparently a drug deal going down on his front lawn involving him and some other shady people. Well, this drug deal ends up going wrong and people pull out guns and there's like a whole shootout right in Patrick's front yard. And blam, one of the guys get shot and he dies. And eventually police show up and bam, they make a bunch of arrests, including Patrick. And so now Patrick is facing serious murder charges and he's really scared. I mean, he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. So he makes a deal with prosecutors. and he agrees to tell them everything he knows about Derwin's murder in exchange for immunity. And he ends up telling them everything, all about Sydney's assassination plot.

Not only that, one of the other guys involved in the assassination gets arrested as well, and he snitches too. And so, bam, police finally arrest Sydney, here's his mugshot. And so ultimately, he goes to trial, he's found guilty, and he gets sentenced to life in prison, while Patrick and the other guy who cooperated with police, they're given immunity, and the other two goons who didn't cooperate, they're also sentenced to life in prison.