A staff report published by The Augusta Press on Tuesday, May 10 included erroneous information regarding two fire cheif finalists.
We stated that finalist for the city’s fire chief position, Sterling P. Jones, was arrested for felony DUI in 2001.
Jones contacted us this morning and stated he had never been arrested for a felony, DUI or otherwise. The information published came from a background police report supplied to us by a highly-placed source who asked to remain anonymous.
We have determined that the Sterling P. Jones of the background check is Fulton County resident Sterling Patrick Jones. The Sterling P. Jones who is a finalist for fire chief is Sterling Pierre Jones.
We also reported another finalist, Anthony Jackson, 53, the assistant fire chief for Newport News, Va., had multiple legal problems, including burglary and felony larceny in 2005, burglary in 2007, trespassing in 2011, contempt for failure to appear in 2014, drug possession in 2016 and a 2017 probation violation.
Those reports were also deemed to be false.
We made a mistake, and we have to own it. We are deeply sorry for any inconvenience or embarrassment our mistake caused Sterling Pierre Jones and Anthony Jackson, and we retract the information included in error.
We are reviewing and revising our internal policies to make sure such a mistake does not happen again in the future.
