The Smith County couple who knowingly sold faulty fire alarms to daycares and other commercial businesses across the state will spend time behind bars.

Daniel and Sherri Finnegan, the owners of Finnegan Fire Safety Equipment, entered guilty pleas on Tuesday in connection with the fraud scheme. Daniel Finnegan will spend seven years in prison, while his spouse will be locked up for one year. Officials report that the plea agreements encompass charges filed in both Rankin and Madison counties, where 12 charges have been filed against each defendant stemming from six different cases.

The Finnegans were arrested in Aug. 2024 for selling and installing used fire suppression systems that did not work and were not tested before being placed into service, putting people at risk in the event of fire. The Mississippi Insurance Department reported that the couple targeted minority-owned businesses and owners who had a language barrier.

Originally, the duo was charged with 41 counts each of false pretense, along with 37 counts each of violations of the Mississippi Fire Prevention Code. Despite the pleas entered in Rankin and Madison Counties, the defendants still face an additional 31 fire prevention code violations and 37 false pretense charges that remain pending in 11 other counties.

“The investigation showed that more than $343,000 was paid directly to the couple by confirmed victims. It is important to note that this figure does not represent the full financial impact, as some financial documentation could not be obtained,” a statement from the Mississippi Insurance Department reads. “Furthermore, many victims incurred substantial additional costs to correct and remediate deficient installations and to bring fire protection systems into compliance.”

Restitution ordered for Daniel Finnegan totals $67,853.95, while Sherri Finnegan has to pay out $20,000.

GOLDSBORO, N.C. — A rancher in North Carolina had a nightmare experience in a car wash recently, when wire fencing sitting in the bed of his pickup truck got entangled in the rotating brushes.

Kyle Corbett shared video of the aftermath on TikTok, writing, “Lesson today is don’t go in the car wash with high tensile wire in the bed of your truck.”

“I needed to put up more fence for my cattle, so I purchased this reel of high tensile wire the night before, and the next day I went up town to take care of some business at the bank,” Corbett said. “I decided to run through the car wash ‘real quick’ and didn’t think about that wire.”

“I never use that truck for any work. I went to the car wash and the guys checked my truck out for safety. I went through and that’s when all hell broke loose,” he said.

“It wrapped up half of the fence in just a matter of seconds and beat the hell out of that car behind me. It sounded like a war zone,” he added.

“This is not good…yeah that’s terrible,” he says in the footage as he’s filming the mess.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. (KOKH) — An investigative audit into the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority; it’s something the Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners is considering.

Fox 25 has been covering issues with the Oklahoma County Detention Center for years, from failed inspections to staffing issues and missed paychecks.

The issues had members of the Jail Trust recommending last June they undergo a performance review. Now, in a letter recently issued, county commissioners are asking State Auditor Cindy Byrd to look into the county Criminal Justice Authority, also known as the jail trust. But whether it’s tied to those ongoing issues remains unclear.

“I really wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know where to begin with that. I just wouldn’t even want to speculate, honestly,” said Commissioner Myles Davidson.

Commissioner Davidson told FOX 25 if the audit were to happen, it wouldn’t be cheap.

“To go into a budget that we’re extremely tight on, and start adding hundreds of thousands of dollars, and time, these audits don’t happen overnight. I don’t know that we would have an answer to any question we could possibly ask before the budgetary cycle is over,” said Davidson.

Davidson said that cycle ends June 1. Instead, he’s suggesting they look into existing audits to see if there’s any useful information there first.

“I would simply say that we need to look at the audits that have been submitted already to the state auditor that the jail trust has already paid for, and then if we have questions about those, we need to bring in that auditing agency and question them. We do have the authority to do that,” Davidsons said.

However, Davidson isn’t sure they have the authority to request this audit.

“When it comes to statute, we have to have it lined out, expressly in statute that we have this authority, and every county commissioner across the state has to abide by that,” he said.

Davidson said they’ll be meeting Monday to find out whether or not they do have the authority to request this audit. He told FOX 25 the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office reached out to folks with Cindy Byrd’s office and was told the audit would cost $100,000, adding that she’s so swamped that she can’t do it this calendar year.

FOX 25 also reached out to Jason Lowe’s office but they said they have no comment.