Investigation Says Bell County Sheriff Knew About Training Acade - 12 News KBMT and K-JAC. News, Weather and Sports for SE Texas

(KCEN) -- A copy of an investigative report obtained by KCEN today suggests that Bell County Sheriff Eddy Lange, who took office on January of this year, knew about the issues going on at the training academy prior to talking office and had, himself, received illegal training.

Yesterday, the Sheriff's Office announced that the license for their training program has been revoked for two years because of fraudulent records for the program.

The county's training officer who oversaw the problem, Danny Kneese, admitted to fraudulent training methods and retired before the license was revoked.

In the summary of the investigation, the investigator said Kneese told investigators he was, "promised a job as Jail Administrator by Lang before the election."

The investigator also says that Lang was one of many who received illegal training from Kneese before the election.

In the summary, the investigator says, "It is likely that Lang and Kneese were working together and Lang, after taking the training knowing it was illegally taken ... became afraid of his campaign being affected, and decided to call TCLEOSE and let Kneese take the fall for the entire incident."

TCLEOSE is the agency that oversees the licensing for the training program and is the agency that revoked that license.

The investigation also says that Lt. Charles Cox was involved with Lang and that he would benefit from working with him as well.  The report alleges that Cox had been promised the role of Chief Deputy if Lang won the election.

It's also possible that Lang and Cox threatened Kneese in an effort to make him take responsibility for the whole training fraud incident according to the report.

The investigating officer wrote, "While typing this report TCLEOSE received anonymous information that Lang and Cox have been going to the residence of Danny Kneese and have possibly threatened him regarding his statements to TCLEOSE. This makes sense because in Danny Kneese's written statement he takes total responsibility for this incident, when it is clear to me that he did not act alone regarding the training given to Eddie Lang."

The report did say that Kneese was wrong in his recording of training hours and concludes by saying that an investigation into Lang's role is ongoing.

As far as Bell County's training program, the county can continue to train officers, but will need another agency to accredit them.