Coffee County Mayor Dennis Hunt is days away from a Republican primary. On Thursday night, he stood at a candidate debate and was asked a direct question: did he have any regrets about how a major controversy during his tenure was handled?
His answer: he regrets the actions Commissioner Joe Mike Hodge took. He regrets that his Administrative Assistant Connie Goethe participated. He called it "well documented" and "a very sticky subject."
Two regrets. Both about other people.
Here's what he didn't mention.
The Setup
In early 2024, Coffee County Mayor Judd Matheny died in office. Dennis Hunt took over. Matheny had been involved in a dispute with the county's Planning Commission before his death — he'd tried to remove several members in November 2023, the commission rejected him, and most of the related documents were made public at the time. What remained was a box of Matheny's notes and records sitting in the mayor's office. Packed up. Stored. Largely forgotten.
County Commissioner Joe Mike Hodge learned the box existed from Sam Harper, who had served as Matheny's Chief of Staff. Hodge reached out to Hunt's Administrative Assistant, Connie Goethe, about accessing the records. He told her they were public records. He said he'd rather come by when Hunt wasn't in the office — the two men didn't get along and he didn't want a confrontation.
Goethe later said she told Hodge she didn't want to be part of it.
No documents were ever removed from the mayor's office. Not one page.
Hunt called it a criminal conspiracy.
The Interrogation
On Sunday morning, April 13, 2025, Hunt called Goethe into the HR office at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza. Sheriff Chad Partin was there. So was HR Director Heather Shelton. No attorney was present for Goethe. She was not placed under arrest. She was not advised of her rights.
It was a Sunday. She had no warning.
Hunt opened with two options: resign or be terminated. Goethe chose resignation. Then, before anything else was said, Hunt told her exactly what this was really about.
"I don't know how you could think that Commissioner Hodge had anything positive to do with Mayor Dennis Hunt."
Not: you violated records policy. Not: you failed to follow proper procedure. Not: you put the county at legal risk.
*I don't know how you could think that Commissioner Hodge had anything positive to do with Mayor Dennis Hunt.*
That is a loyalty oath. Framed around one man. Not the office. Not the county. Not the public trust. Him. Dennis Hunt. Personally.
Goethe had worked in county government for years. She answered a phone call from a commissioner who said he wanted to look at public records. She told him she didn't want to be involved. No documents moved. No crime occurred.
But she didn't report the call to Hunt. And in Hunt's office, that is the offense.
The Felony Threat
After Goethe accepted the resignation, Sheriff Partin took over. He called it "the criminal side of things."
Partin told Goethe that she and Commissioner Hodge had "basically formalized a criminal attempt crime." He told her Sheriff's Office investigators had already been working the case. He invoked the District Attorney's name as backing. He told her to pass a message to Hodge and Harper when she left.
He was coming for them.
"It's not that the mayor's office has anything to hide," Partin said on the tape. "It's the principle that this is basically theft on your part had it happened."
He called it official misconduct. A felony for an elected official.
No documents were taken. No crime had occurred. The DA had not authorized any of this. But in a closed HR office on a Sunday morning, with no attorney present and her job already gone, Connie Goethe was told she had committed a felony.
The Statement
Before Goethe left, Partin drafted a written statement for her to sign. He wrote it in the room. Read it aloud. Asked her to sign it.
The statement said she realized "what was about to take place was wrong and possibly illegal."
Goethe asked for one word change — "records" to "notes." It was made. She signed.
What the statement left out: Goethe's own words, said clearly on the same tape, that Hodge was joking about the jacket. That she had told him she didn't want to be part of it. That she hadn't thought it was wrong at the time.
She said those things in the room. On the record. In the same meeting. The man writing the statement heard her say them.
They didn't make the document.
The sheriff wrote the confession. The mayor's employee signed it. It went into the file.
The Promise
Before Goethe walked out, Hunt made her a promise.
"I'm not going to make a big splash out of this. No Facebook post, no news media release."
On June 26, 2025, Hunt released the audio, the documents, and a written statement via Facebook Messenger.
What Happened to Hodge
The April 13 meeting was not the end of it.
At a closed executive session during the May 13 Commission meeting, Commissioner Hodge was threatened with criminal charges if he did not resign from office. Hodge said no.
The commission then directed County Attorney Mark Williams to investigate whether Hodge could be formally removed.
A commissioner. Threatened with prosecution. To force him out of elected office.
Hodge had not removed a single document. He had made a phone call.
The DA's Response
In late June 2025, District Attorney General Craig Northcott sent a letter directly to the county commissioners.
In it, he wrote that Sheriff Partin had represented to the commissioners that Northcott agreed with and supported "his threats of criminal prosecution of Joe Mike Hodge." Northcott called that "a complete misrepresentation of my position." He told the commissioners he wanted to address the full body directly. He said it was important they understand the law behind the allegations — and how Partin had misrepresented that too. He said the timeline of events was essential "to properly evaluate the motives and conduct of all involved."
The DA did not send a note of support. He sent a letter to the commission saying the sheriff lied to them about what the DA said.
Hunt's response: a June 24 email to Northcott demanding a public retraction. Hunt called Northcott's statements "incorrect and untrue." He disputed that any early meeting between them had taken place. He said he had never publicly used Northcott's name in the matter.
The sheriff had invoked the DA's name as active support — on tape, to a woman being told she committed a felony — and the mayor's position was that he had never used the DA's name publicly.
The DA wrote to the full commission. The mayor demanded a retraction.
According to reporting at the time, a grand jury was subsequently convened — examining Hunt's conduct. No indictment followed.
That is the legal outcome. It is not an exoneration.
A grand jury sets one specific bar. It does not determine whether a mayor ran a county HR process as a personal loyalty hearing. It does not determine whether a sheriff threatened felony charges without legal basis. It does not determine whether a commissioner was pressured to resign his elected seat under threat of prosecution. It does not determine whether the public was told one story while the DA was told another.
Those things are documented. The audio is 31 minutes. Hunt released it himself.
What He's Not Saying
Back to Thursday night. Back to the debate. Back to the question Hunt was asked directly: any regrets?
He regrets Hodge. He regrets Goethe.
Not one word about a Sunday morning meeting where a county employee was told to resign or be fired, with no attorney, no rights, no warning. Not one word about a felony threat delivered by a sheriff with no legal basis to make it. Not one word about a confession drafted by the people doing the firing, with the employee's own objections left out. Not one word about promising silence and going straight to Facebook. Not one word about a sitting commissioner threatened with prosecution to force him out of office. Not one word about the DA writing to the full county commission to say his position had been completely misrepresented.
Two regrets. Both about other people.
That is not a man reckoning with what happened. That is a man four days from an election who has decided the voters either don't know or won't care.
The voters of Coffee County have the audio. They have the emails. They have the DA's own letter to the commission.
Now they have this.
*This is the first in a series of pieces on the Coffee County Republican Mayoral Primary ahead of the May 6, 2026 election. The interrogation audio was released by Coffee County Mayor Dennis Hunt on June 26, 2025 via Facebook Messenger. DA Craig Northcott's letter to the county commissioners and Mayor Hunt's June 24 email to Northcott are cited directly from documents obtained by Unfiltered with Berry.*
