Devyn Keith, a second-term city councilman in Huntsville, turned himself in early Wednesday morning on four warrants charging him with misdemeanor counts of theft.
According to Madison County Jail records, Keith, 34, was booked at 1:24 a.m. and released at 2:13 a.m. on a $300 bail. The four charges are for fourth-degree shoplifting ($500 or less), identical to last week’s charge.
Keith posted a brief statement on his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon.
“At advice of my legal counsel, I will no longer be discussing my ongoing litigation,” the Facebook post said. “I have received a court date and I will give my final statement at tomorrow’s city council meeting. More importantly…know that I love you all and I thank God for you.”
Keith’s attorney, John Taylor, said Wednesday afternoon he was not aware of a court date being set at this point.
Keith’s booking on the four charges comes just six days after the Huntsville Police Department arrested and charged him with one count of shoplifting at the Walmart store on University Drive.
The Huntsville Police Department also sought the latest warrants but passed them off to the Madison County sheriff’s office.
“We were only given the warrants to serve to prevent any conflict of interest with the City of Huntsville being involved,” Brent Patterson, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said earlier Tuesday when confirming the warrants to AL.com.
The Huntsville Police Department declined to comment on the nature of the latest charges.
“These cases are being handled by the Madison County District Attorney’s Office to avoid any perception of, or potential for, conflict of interest,” Sgt. Rosalind White said in an email.
Tim Gann, the chief deputy district attorney for Madison County, said his office did not yet have copies of the warrants earlier Tuesday because Keith had not yet been served.
Keith said in a text message to AL.com that he planned to address the situation at Thursday’s city council meeting. John Taylor, his attorney, declined to comment, saying he was still gathering information about the allegations.
After his previous arrest on Thursday of last week, Keith posted an apology on Facebook and said that he made a mistake when he failed to pay for a $20 pair of headphones.
“No one is above the law and as someone who works for and aspires to devotedly represent the best of the people of Huntsville, I can’t make these types of mistakes,” Keith said in the Feb. 3 Facebook post. “I know I am better than this.”
Keith’s cases will be handled in Madison County District Court. An arraignment that was previously scheduled for Wednesday morning in Huntsville Municipal Court has been canceled, court officials told AL.com.
Fourth-degree theft is a misdemeanor that’s punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $6,000. Fourth-degree theft involves less than $500 of stolen property or merchandise.
Keith, whose district includes much of north Huntsville and stretches into the downtown area, has been a rising star in Huntsville politics, defeating longtime councilman Richard Showers in 2016 in a runoff to join the council. Keith has long credited Showers for the impact he had on the district and on himself. Keith was raised in north Huntsville.
In 2018, the city council elected him as its president, despite Keith being just 29 years old and in his first term on the council. He was the youngest member of the council to be elected as its president. Keith received 64 percent of the vote in his 2020 re-election.
During his time on the city council, he relentlessly lobbied for north Huntsville – which had long suffered economically as other areas of the Rocket City blossomed. The region is starting to catch up to the rest of the city with dozens of new homes under construction and the revitalization of the former campus of Johnson High School into a mixed-use development.
Keith earned his undergraduate degree and played college football at Samford University in Birmingham and received his master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
Updated today, Feb. 8, 2023, at 1:47 p.m. with a statement from Keith.