By By Kerry Whipple-Bean
Margaret Breland Bradley pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor ethics violation involving brick used at her family’s hot dog restaurant, ending a year and a half case that saw Bradley charged with multiple felonies.
Bradley, the former director of Alabama State University’s Southern Normal campus, will pay $2,000 restitution to ASU. The bricks taken from the Southern Normal campus were used in a business owned by Bradley and her late husband Charlie Bradley, according to the original indictment. Under the plea agreement, Bradley will not serve time or pay a fine.
Stokes said he could not describe what the employee did, but he said that ASU employee’s case was handled administratively by the Alabama Ethics Commission.
Bradley pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of unintentionally using bricks owned by ASU in the construction of the Barbershop Mall and Hot Diggity Dog, the business Bradley and her husband owned in East Brewton. Bradley’s husband, who was originally indicted in the case, died in December, after charges against him were dropped.
David Whetstone, a former district attorney in Baldwin County who handled the case for the state, said the state was satisfied with the outcome.
Whetstone handled the case because of a conflict of interest in the Escambia County district attorney’s office.
The Alabama Ethics Commission began the investigation into the case.
Breland Bradley is a former Escambia County Schools superintendent.