Law enforcement leaders and elected officials from across Western North Carolina gathered the day before Thanksgiving to remind people about the dangers of consuming alcohol and getting behind the wheel while also reaffirming their commitment to combatting drunk driving. 

Former Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran, who retired earlier this month amid sexual assault charges, is now facing a second-degree rape charge.

Cochran was formally indicted on the latest charge Monday, July 21, and was arrested by an SBI agent the morning of Tuesday, July, 22.

Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran has been charged with several crimes after allegedly soliciting two women for sexual acts and is now suspended from office.

Cochran, who was first elected to office in 2006, was charged on June 27 with one count of sexual battery, soliciting a prostitute and assault on a female, all misdemeanors, as well as felonious restraint. In addition, Cochran has been charged with violations of the Cherokee Code; specifically, two counts of oppression in office and one count of abusive sexual contact.

More than two years after he was shot by Cherokee Indian Police Department SWAT Team members, Jason Harley Kloepfer has reached a $10 million settlement with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Cherokee County, ending any chances of what was shaping up to be a difficult and complicated federal trial.

An order filed in Cherokee County Superior Court April 10 sealed all areas where there may be any evidence related to criminal cases, critically hampering the agency’s ability to serve taxpayers. This comes only about a week after District Attorney Ashley Welch issued a Giglio order against Milton “Sport” Teasdale, who heads up the sheriff’s office’s criminal investigative division.

New filings in the civil suit Jason Harley Kloepfer filed seven months after he was shot by police in the doorway of his own home cast a new shadow over the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch today said a Haywood County jury recently convicted a Bryson City man on seven criminal charges in connection with trafficking in illegal drugs. 

Western North Carolina courts were saddled with a sizable backlog of cases following the shutdowns related to the COVID pandemic, and while much of the overload has abated, especially in Haywood and Jackson counties, there have still been problems. 

A man who was severely injured in a 2022 police shooting at his home in Cherokee County won’t see a resolution to his civil suit until August 2025 at the earliest, according to a recent filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. 

M More than six months after beloved Swain County educator was shot and killed  at his motel in Cherokee, District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch has announced that the South Carolina resident who pulled the trigger will not face criminal charges. The man fired in self-defense after Wilson brandished a handgun, the investigation found.