NEW TAZEWELL, Tenn. - Former Claiborne County Sheriff David Ray stayed home and sent his lawyers alone to his first court appearance Monday on charges of dodging taxes and illegally using jail inmates to fix cars and work on his campaign.

Ray's lawyer, Jeff Daniel, waived a formal reading of the charges in Criminal Court and said he's waiting for more information from prosecutors. Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge Shayne Sexton set a status hearing for Oct. 29.

Daniel noted Ray wasn't required by law to appear in person Monday. He said he expects the former sheriff to attend any future hearings.

He said he's not been notified of any pending federal charges.

"Not that I'm aware of, but never say never," Daniel said.

Charges follow April raid

Ray, a legendary former judge and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent, has fought a series of corruption and misconduct charges through a 50-year career — and won every time.

TBI agents serving a sealed grand jury indictment arrested Ray, 71, at the county Justice Center in August. The arrest came nearly four months after state and federal authorities serving a search warrant raided the sheriff's offices in April and seized various records from the county finance department.

Ray faces seven counts of official misconduct, one count of use of inmates for personal gain, one count of forgery, and six counts of tax evasion. Bryant Dunaway, a Middle Tennessee district attorney general who's serving as special prosecutor, has said he can't rule out the possibility of federal charges.

Also indicted are Larry Martin, the former county jail administrator — who's listed in court records as a felon — and Larry "Fireball" Roberts, a county mechanic.

Martin, 42, faces three charges of possession of a gun by a felon.

Roberts faces two counts of official misconduct. Authorities say he used a county vehicle to obtain drugs.

Cars and campaign signs

The indictments claim Ray used inmates to put together campaign signs and to work on personal vehicles he later sold for a profit. He forged at least one title and dodged taxes on vehicle sales dating back to 2012, according to the TBI.

The vehicles included three trucks - a 1995 Toyota Tacoma, a 1994 Ford F150 and a 2008 Nissan Titan - along with a 2003 Ford Explorer, a 1974 Ford tractor and a 1972 John Deere bulldozer, according to court records.

A 50-year career

Ray lost his bid for a fourth term as sheriff last month. He blamed his defeat on rumors triggered by the raid and the resulting probe, which included agents interviewing witnesses up through the day of the election.

Ray began his police career as a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper in 1969 and moved from there to the TBI. He worked violent crimes across the eastern third of the state for most of the 1970s, from bank robberies, rapes and murders to the 1977 manhunt for James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., when James Earl Ray and six others escaped from Brushy Mountain Prison in Morgan County.

David Ray won election in 1982 as Claiborne County general sessions judge, even though he didn't hold a law degree. He continued to hold court after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of taking kickbacks from illegal poker machines in 1986 and denounced the charges as a setup.

A jury found him not guilty, and Ray stayed on the bench until 1998, when he lost a bid for re-election.

State law now requires sessions judges to hold law degrees.

Ray won election as sheriff for the first time in 2006. Just after he took office, a 17-year-old girl accused him of raping her at gunpoint during a hunting trip in neighboring Hancock County.

The sheriff denied the accusation, and a jury never heard the case. Prosecutors, citing questions about the girl's credibility, agreed to a deal that granted Ray a clean record upon completing two years' probation.

He kept that clean record even after Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officers cited him for shooting a deer without a license on the county fairgrounds across the street from the jail. The sheriff told officers he wanted the venison to feed inmates.