Suspended Durham magistrate resigns

Magistrate Sam Biers was suspended last month after the Durham County Sheriff's Office accused him of providing a false date of birth on his employment records to hide a criminal history.

Biers maintained in his resignation letter that a courthouse employee entered the wrong birth date in his employment files.

"As a result of the scurrilous and false complaints against me, I am forced to resign as a State of North Carolina and Durham County magistrate and freely state that I will never apply for a North Carolina magistrate position again," Biers wrote in the letter.

"The allegation that I intentionally deceived the hiring authority is ludicrous and patently false since legally I have no criminal history," Biers wrote in his resignation letter. "It was all expunged and sealed."

He said his past came to light only after he filed a complaint against others in the Durham County Courthouse.

In addition to the complaint filed against Biers by the Durham County Sheriff's Office, the mother of a student stabbed at Northern High School in March filed a complaint against him.

Kenya Newell said her son was still undergoing emergency surgery while the student charged in the case was released on the $5,000 bond Biers set in the case.

Newell said investigators told her that Eric Tyrone Prince Jr. admitted that he had brought a knife to school for the sole purpose of stabbing her son and should have been held on a higher bond. She also complained that Biers didn't seem to take her concerns seriously when she questioned the bond.

Her complaint also alleged that Biers had a criminal history.

Biers said in his resignation letter that he never spoke to Newell and that another magistrate handled her call.

His resignation comes two days before a court hearing was scheduled on petitions seeking his removal as magistrate.