LAUDERDALE CO., Alabama (WAF) – Through court documents, state prosecutors share what evidence could be used against a Lauderdale County judge.

Audit found Judge Gilbert Self spent more than $146,000 of county money on unauthorized expenses such as employing your child, purchasing a couch, purchasing alcoholic beverages, golf clubs, glasses, frames, firearms, ammunition, cat litter and more.

Self was indicted in January 2024 on sixteen counts of using office for personal or family member benefit, one count of making a false statement to the Examiners of Public Accounts, and one count of perjury.

The false statements charges stem from lies and false documents presented to examiners during a 2023 audit of the two Lauderdale County funds.

On top of that, prosecutors say the state wanted Circuit Court calendars from 2020 to 2023, but the calendars had disappeared.

During last year’s audit, state officials said Self repaid the unauthorized expenses in full.

Now the state says they are still ready to prove he is guilty.

Documents show the guns he purchased and the American Express card fee he paid using a county fund were part of starting the case in the first place.

After that, they discovered that many of the charges came from him using the card and then reimbursing himself for those charges.

Prosecutors add that the card is not affiliated with the Judicial Administration Fund or the Law Library Fund.

Prosecutors filed a notice to present specific evidence about Self’s personal travel. The evidence includes financial records, checks and bank statements from the presiding judge’s receivership fund, the Law Library fund and Self’s bank accounts.

For some of those trips, Self allegedly paid himself with court funds and dismissed them as a trip to drug court.

Prosecutors also plan to use a local magazine detailing Self’s bicycle trips in other parts of the country, where he wrote a check in his name for a hotel room with a line of memo about a trip to drug court.

Some of the unauthorized expenses included spending more than $1,100 on two guns for “court protection.”

When the auditors confronted Self, he was unable to show them where they were in the courtroom or his office.

Prosecutors say they are ready to prove that Self regularly, for four years, victimized Lauderdale County, adding that the transactions occur almost every two months.

In the documents, the state even asks the question: If Self believed he could spend the money however he wanted, then why would he lie in the notations on the check memo lines by writing “drug court,” for example?

Self has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a status hearing in December where a trial date could be set.

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