Ray Justice Running for Wilson County Sheriff

Ray Justice, the longtime and controversial Mt. Juliet city commissioner, is set to kick off his campaign for Wilson County sheriff next week, a year-and-a-half after retiring from the department.

Justice posted on Facebook Tuesday, "As promised, I have made the 'major political decision.' I will be a candidate for Sheriff of Wilson County in August 2018. Thank you everyone for the prayers and thoughts in helping make this decision. #Justiceforwilsoncounty" An official campaign launch is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug, 24, at the Cedar Creek Marina.

Justice has served on the Mt. Juliet Board of Commissioners since 2000 (with a four-year gap from 2008 until 2012), despite complaints of corruption, abuse of his powers, favoritism to developers with whom he is friends (or in the past two years, ones for whom he works) and frequent clashes with other commissioners and city staff. Of course, to a certain extent, that's small-town politics across the board — Justice has denied every allegation levied against him or has said things have been taken out of context or has said the complaints were politically motivated (which, to be sure, is also likely, even if said complaints were/are true).

Two years ago, Justice also denied allegations of domestic assault. After a confrontation with his then-estranged third wife while picking up clothing for their daughters, Justice was charged with assault, aggravated burglary and vandalism. He was suspended from the Wilson County Sheriff's Department without pay while the investigation was ongoing. The charges were later dropped, and Justice temporarily reconciled with his wife. But the couple divorced in 2016, four years after she first filed for divorce, and a few months after Justice retired from the sheriff's department after a 12-year-career there, according to a summary on LinkedIn.

Previously Justice worked for the Lebanon Police Department. In the 1990s he served as chair of Mt. Juliet's Parks Board and was also the head of the Mt. Juliet Little League for years.

Justice wouldn't return the Scene's messages about why he wants to leave his job as vice-president of development for Resolve Commercial Development, which has built a new Starbucks and the recently closed Woodfire Grill in Mt. Juliet, among other things. (It's possible Justice is still fuming over our reporting of his son's antics last summer, when the son set a rival's campaign sign on fire.) The current Wilson County sheriff, Robert Bryan, was appointed to the position in 2012 and elected in 2014 with no opposition; he has not announced whether or not he plans to run for re-election.

Wilson County politics are not a generally a regular feature of Scene coverage (excepting their legislators), but Justice's run has already prompted multiple people (from both sides of the aisle) to contact this reporter — that's how polarizing a figure he is. So we'll just leave you with this (admittedly incomplete) list of some of the controversies that have popped up in Justice's tenure:

• In 2003, then-Mt. Juliet Mayor Kevin Mack alleged Justice had threatened city employees who supported the city manager, whom Justice had tried to get fired. Justice denied the threats.
• In 2004, Mack tried to oust Justice from the commission after Mt. Juliet Police Chief Kenneth Martin turned over a recording in which Justice admitted to preferential treatment in traffic stops and said he did not charge a woman with a DUI after she told him she was the fiancee of a Metro police officer. Justice said he was exaggerating, and the commission ultimately did not vote over the ouster because it was unsure of the legality of the move.
• In 2006, Justice hosted a prayer rally to protest the ACLU suing the school board over religious activities and prayer in the schools, commenting, “It tells me that the efforts of our educators are right on the money.” The county later lost the case and had to shell out more than $100,000 in damages.
• In 2013, Justice got city parks employees to remove brush from his yard after a call to the city manager, who later denied he was doing any special favors.
• In 2014, a Vietnamese nail salon owner filed a complaint after alleging Justice was harassing and intimidating him and his employees. Around that same time, Justice's third wife filed a restraining order against him.
• In 2015, Justice's wife filed another restraining order against him after the arrest described earlier.
• In 2016, Mt. Juliet settled a lawsuit over its temporary sign ordinance brought in part because Democratic legislative candidate Trisha Farmer's campaign signs had been removed because the city said such signs could not be up more than 60 days before the election. Farmer was challenging state Rep. Susan Lynn, who is friends with Justice.
• Also in 2016, Mt. Juliet adopted an "anti-sanctuary city" ordinance supported by Justice, who said undocumented immigrants drain law enforcement resources.

In between pictures of his children, Justice, a Trump supporter, regularly posts on his Facebook page about his problems with immigrants and Muslims. However,

the attack in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, saying, "[W]hite supremacists ... should disgust all of us. They are evil and everything they believe in should be condemned in the strongest manner possible."