Precinct 31 Constable Albert McCreary, 55, has now been charged with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree unlawful imprisonment and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday, escalating a case that began with a traffic stop and a firearms charge and had already prompted prosecutors to seek his removal from office.
The state charges followed an ongoing sexual assault investigation that led investigators to obtain a search warrant for McCreary’s vehicle on July 28. Arrest warrants in the case were signed Aug. 3. McCreary remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service on a federal hold. He has not been convicted, and the charges remain allegations at this stage of the case.
“No title, position or elected office places anyone above the law,” Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch said in announcing the charges.
The Mobile County District Attorney’s office filed a quo warranto petition July 30 seeking McCreary’s removal from his elected post as constable for Precinct 31, citing a prior felony conviction and allegations that he no longer lives within the precinct he was elected to serve.
What Is a Quo Warranto Petition?
A quo warranto petition is a legal action used to challenge a person’s right to hold a public office. Rather than addressing guilt or innocence in a criminal matter, it asks a court to determine whether an officeholder is legally qualified to continue serving. If a court finds that a person does not meet the legal requirements for their office — due to a disqualifying criminal history, a residency violation or another statutory defect — it can order that person removed from the position. Prosecutors in Mobile County have asked a judge to grant such an order on an expedited basis.
The Basis for the Removal Petition
According to the District Attorney’s office, the petition rests on two separate grounds. First, prosecutors point to a 2009 felony battery conviction McCreary received in Escambia County, Florida, arguing that Alabama law bars individuals with felony convictions from serving as constables, who hold law enforcement authority within their precincts. Second, the petition challenges McCreary’s residency, alleging that he moved from a home on Saint Stephens Road to an apartment in Daphne after he was elected to represent Precinct 31 in 2024. Alabama law generally requires constables to reside within the precinct they represent.
McCreary has disputed the basis for his removal, saying his Florida conviction had been expunged and that he was legally authorized to carry firearms. Federal officials, however, found no evidence that his firearm rights had been restored after checking with Florida’s Office of Executive Clemency.
How the Firearms Charge Emerged
The rape investigation first became public after a July 28 traffic stop in which Mobile County Sheriff’s Office deputies, searching McCreary’s Chevrolet Tahoe as part of the sexual assault investigation, discovered a Glock Model 23 .40-caliber handgun. Federal prosecutors separately charged McCreary with firearm possession by a prohibited person, citing his 2009 felony conviction. He was not initially charged in the underlying rape investigation.
What Happens Next
McCreary now faces both the newly filed state charges — first-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree unlawful imprisonment — and the pending federal firearms case, in addition to the civil quo warranto proceeding seeking his removal from office. The criminal cases and the removal petition are proceeding on separate tracks through the county and federal court systems. Constables in Alabama are locally elected officials who, depending on the county and precinct, may serve civil process, provide courtroom security or assist local law enforcement; their eligibility requirements, including residency and criminal history restrictions, are set by state law.
McCreary is presumed innocent unless and until convicted.
Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County in southwest Alabama and the state’s only saltwater port. Situated where the Mobile River meets Mobile Bay near the northern Gulf of Mexico, the city has long served as a commercial and cultural gateway between Alabama and the wider Gulf Coast. Founded in 1702 as Fort Louis de la Louisiane and ruled in turn by France, Britain, and Spain before joining the United States in 1813, Mobile carries a layered heritage distinct from the rest of the state.
Today Mobile anchors a metropolitan area spanning Mobile County and neighboring Baldwin County, and it remains a center for shipping, aerospace, healthcare, and higher education in the region. Its downtown and waterfront have seen sustained revitalization, while historic neighborhoods preserve architecture from its colonial and antebellum past. The city’s identity is shaped as much by its working port and industrial base as by its festivals and food culture, making it a frequent focal point for news about growth and change in southern Alabama.
Alabama is a state in the southeastern United States bordered by Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi. Often called the Heart of Dixie, it spans Appalachian foothills in the north and flat coastal plains in the south. Its largest cities include Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville, and Mobile.
Alabama’s history encompasses Indigenous roots, Spanish and French colonial settlement, a cotton-plantation economy, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a shift toward manufacturing, aerospace, and technology. Local news across the state frequently reflects this mix of tradition and change.
Local government in the Mobile area operates through a combination of mayor-council or commission structures at the municipal level and a county commission in Mobile County, with elected officials handling budgets, public safety, infrastructure, and zoning. Baldwin County has its own commission and a collection of incorporated municipalities.
Decisions made in council chambers and commission meetings affect roads, school funding, economic development, and quality of life, which is why coverage of local government is a staple of regional journalism. The interplay between city, county, and state authorities often determines how effectively the area can address shared challenges.
Because many services residents rely on are delivered at the local level, the choices of elected officials have direct, everyday consequences. Budget priorities, in particular, reveal a community’s values and shape the trajectory of growth and public welfare for years to come.
Local law enforcement across South Alabama is carried out by municipal police departments, county sheriff’s offices, and state agencies that together cover a mix of urban, suburban, and rural territory. City departments handle policing within municipal limits, while sheriff’s offices provide courthouse security, jail operations, and patrol in unincorporated areas.
Cooperation among these agencies, and with federal partners, is central to tackling problems that cross jurisdictional lines, from drug trafficking to violent crime. Joint task forces that pair federal agents with local officers have become a standard mechanism for sharing information and concentrating resources on threats that no single agency could address alone.
Public-safety agencies in the region also contend with staffing, training, and community-relations challenges common to departments nationwide. How they allocate patrols, respond to calls, and engage neighborhoods is a regular subject of local oversight and news coverage, particularly where residents expect both accountability and visible protection.
Probate courts in Alabama handle matters distinct from the trial courts that hear criminal and civil cases, including wills, estates, guardianships, and involuntary commitments for mental-health treatment. In Mobile County the probate judge is an elected official with broad administrative and judicial duties.
Cases involving involuntary psychiatric commitment require the court to balance an individual’s liberty interests against concerns for their safety and the safety of others, a sensitive legal threshold that has drawn scrutiny in many jurisdictions. The procedures governing such hearings, including who must appear and testify, are set by state law and local rule.
Disputes over those procedures often surface tensions between healthcare providers, the court, and advocates for patients. Because the stakes involve both liberty and wellbeing, courts and clinicians alike face pressure to honor the law while ensuring that people in crisis receive timely and appropriate care.
The history of South Alabama is shaped by its position at the crossroads of cultures and waters. Indigenous peoples, including the Muscogee (Creek) and Choctaw, lived in the region for centuries before European colonization by French, British, and Spanish powers.
The cotton economy and the Civil War left deep imprints, as did the Civil Rights Movement, in which Alabama played a defining role. Understanding present-day debates in the region often requires appreciating this layered past, in which port commerce, racial history, and coastal geography have long intertwined.
That inheritance is visible in the architecture, street names, and institutions of the area. Public memory of the past informs contemporary conversations about growth, equity, and identity, and it frequently surfaces in coverage of local events and policy.
Baldwin County sits directly east of Mobile County across Mobile Bay and is the largest county in Alabama by land area. It encompasses the Eastern Shore communities of Daphne, Fairhope, Spanish Fort, and Foley and stretches south to the beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach along the Gulf of Mexico.
Long among the fastest-growing counties in the state, Baldwin blends suburban development near the bay with tourism-driven coastal economies. Its proximity to Mobile and its position on the Eastern Shore make it a recurring subject of regional news covering growth, infrastructure, schools, and the balance between development and coastal preservation.