In Alabama, a police badge can stop a person, search a person, arrest a person, and help send that person into the machinery of the courts. It should never leave the public wondering where government authority ends and a private side business begins.
That is the unanswered question at the center of the Kevin Naman ethics case.
The official ending is almost unbelievably small: a $100 administrative penalty and no restitution. But the facts that put the case before the Alabama Ethics Commission were not small. They involved a Mobile police officer, an ankle-monitoring company serving defendants under court supervision, allegations of a public police vehicle being used in private company work, and a court-ordered customer who says he could not tell whether he was dealing with the government or a business.
The Alabama Ethics Commission did not dismiss the matter. In its August 2, 2023 minutes, the Commission voted 4-0 that there was cause to hold that Kevin Naman, identified as a City of Mobile police officer, had committed a minor violation of the Alabama Ethics Act. The case was to be handled administratively and referred to the District Attorney for the appropriate judicial circuit.
The complaint that led there was filed by Douglas Roberts on September 12, 2022. Roberts wrote that in January 2022, while he was a defendant in Mobile County’s 13th Judicial Circuit, a judge ordered him onto electronic monitoring through Pegasus Services LLC. Roberts said he reported to Pegasus, paid money to Naman, and later learned Naman was both a partner in Pegasus and a full-time Mobile police officer.
That alone should have set off alarms. A person under court supervision is not a normal customer shopping around for a vendor. When a judge orders electronic monitoring, the defendant is trapped inside a system backed by the state. If the company collecting the monthly fee is tied to a sworn officer in the same policing ecosystem, transparency is not optional. It is the minimum price of public trust.
Roberts alleged more than a paper conflict. He said he communicated with Naman almost daily for six months about the monitor, including on weekdays and weekends, and that Naman or Pegasus collected monthly fees by credit card and other payment methods. In an interview with 1819 News, Roberts said Naman came to his house in a police SUV after an ankle monitor issue and later told him he needed to pay for a replacement charger.
In the complaint, Roberts said Naman arrived wearing a Mobile Police Department badge and sidearm, made trips to a white Chevrolet Tahoe Roberts described as a Mobile Police Department-owned vehicle, and appeared to retrieve parts to repair the private company’s monitor. A photo attached to the complaint shows a white SUV parked outside a residence with its rear hatch open and a person standing at the back of the vehicle. The complaint alleged that Pegasus equipment was being stored in a publicly owned vehicle and that public property and possibly city time were being used for private gain.
The public record reviewed here does not show that every allegation was proven. That matters. But it also does not show that the allegations were baseless. The Commission found cause to hold that Naman committed an ethics violation, accepted Naman’s request for administrative resolution, and sent the matter forward.
The case also was not some obscure business connection discovered after the fact. NBC 15 reported in August 2023 that Naman was a Mobile Police narcotics officer and co-owner of Pegasus Services, LLC, which provides ankle-monitoring services to the court system. The complaint included Naman’s 2021 Statement of Economic Interests, which listed Pegasus Services as private-business income and as a business in which he owned at least five percent.
So what did Alabama do with a case involving a police officer, a court-connected private company, and allegations of public resources being used in that company’s work?
It called it minor.
Under the Alabama Ethics Commission’s own FAQ, administrative resolutions are limited to minor violations, and administrative fines can reach $6,000 per violation. Alabama Code Section 36-25-27 says administrative resolution requires approval after a respondent petitions or agrees to that path, and that the Commission may impose a penalty for minor violations. In this case, the final number was not $6,000. It was $100.
The April 3, 2024 Ethics Commission minutes state that the Commission had unanimously found Naman committed one minor violation, that the District Attorney of the 13th Judicial Circuit approved the administrative resolution on or before March 22, 2024, and that Naman was ordered to pay $100 by June 5, 2024. The same order said no restitution was owed.
That may close the file. It should not close the questions.
Did Mobile Police determine whether a city vehicle was used for Pegasus work? Did it determine whether Naman conducted Pegasus business while on duty? Did the department discipline anyone? Did the courts that ordered defendants onto Pegasus monitors know the company was co-owned by a Mobile police officer? Were defendants told? Did they have a meaningful choice? And why did a case serious enough for a unanimous ethics finding end with a penalty smaller than many traffic tickets?
FOX10 reported in August 2023 that the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office had referred the matter to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. FOX10 also reported that Naman could not be reached for comment and that Mobile Police said it was conducting an internal investigation. NBC 15 and 1819 News reported similar Mobile Police statements about an internal investigation and cooperation with prosecutors. The sources reviewed for this article do not show the public what that internal investigation concluded.
That silence is part of the problem.
The issue here is bigger than one officer and one fine. Public employees can have outside work. Police officers can own businesses. But when private profit grows inside the shadow of public power, the rules must be brighter, not dimmer. A defendant wearing a court-ordered monitor should never have to wonder whether the man collecting the money is acting as a police officer, a private vendor, or both.
The word “minor” may make sense inside the legal machinery of the Ethics Commission. It does not make sense as a civic answer. The public saw an officer tied to a company making money from court-supervised defendants. The complainant alleged a police SUV and police authority crossed into that company’s business. The Ethics Commission found a violation. The final penalty was $100.
Mobile deserves more than a receipt.
It deserves a public accounting of what happened, what policies failed, what the Police Department found, what the courts knew, and what safeguards now exist to prevent public authority from becoming private leverage. Until those answers are on the record, the Naman case is not really over. It has simply been administratively priced.