Judge sends ex-MS Coast councilman Alan Moran back to jail for violating his probation
A Circuit Court judge Thursday sent former Mississippi Coast councilman Alan Joseph Moran to the county jail for a technical violation of his probation as a result of his latest arrest on a misdemeanor stalking charge.
Judge Christopher Schmidt ruled after hearing evidence in the stalking case pending against Moran in Waveland. Moran’s attorney, Donald Rafferty, argued his client did not stalk anyone or allegedly solicit the victim — a male employee at Lowe’s —for sex or otherwise, as alleged in the latest case.
The judge said Moran would receive credit for the 30 days he served in the county jail earlier this year, which were part of a six-month suspended sentence for a misdemeanor conviction of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The judge said that because the misdemeanor allegation is a technical violation, it would not apply to his 15-year suspended sentence for a felony child exploitation conviction.
Moran, 35, did not offer any comment during the hearing, but Raffety said his client had not committed any new crime, including the allegation of stalking pending against him.
“We emphatically deny the allegations,” Rafferty said. “People are trying to take shots at him (Moran). The bottom line is we look forward to our day in court. He is pleading not guilty. We can’t say anything other than that.”
Waveland police arrested Moran on Dec. 16 on the stalking offense. In that case, police said Moran allegedly stalked a 19-year-old man who worked at Lowe’s, making sexually suggestive comments to the man about how he could make money by having sex with a woman at his job and then later offered the man $20 for sex.
In video footage of the encounter played in court, Moran is seen chatting with the man multiple times as he tries to back away from him at one point.
The man told police he became even more fearful when he got off work, and Moran was in the parking lot in a truck waiting on him.
Moran rolled down the truck window, offered the man $20 for sex, and asked repeatedly that the teen get in Moran’s truck and leave with him.
Waveland Police Lt. Eddie Hursey said the man feared for his safety and came to the Police Department for help because of what had allegedly happened.
Since Moran’s arrest in the stalking case, two others, Ian Schexnayder of Pearlington and Jeremy Cole Billings of Diamondhead, have each been arrested on a felony charge of bribery. The pair is accused of approaching the Lowe’s employee to offer him cash to drop the misdemeanor charge. They have since been released from the Hancock County jail, each on a $25,000 bond.
According to a police report in the bribery case that the Sun Herald obtained, the two men accused in the bribery case approached the same teen outside Lowe’s and offered him $20,000 in cash, showing the estimated $5,000 in cash they had on them.
The report said the two men told the teen he’d receive the $5,000 upfront and the remaining $15,000 in cash once the teen dropped the charge.
The teen at Lowe’s told the two suspects he wasn’t interested in the money and that he was going to the Waveland Police Department to report what they had done.
That case remains under investigation.
