It’s still not business as usual these days for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office, which last year saw its top deputy resign and two weeks ago plead guilty to using the sheriff’s office to buy automatic weapons for the former security contractor known as Blackwater.

The case is still under investigation. Although Sheriff Tony Perry has not been accused of any wrongdoing, until the investigation wraps up and all involved are sentenced, it has to be a bit unnerving for the department, which includes 16 full-time deputies and the sheriff.

On Nov. 14, Jon Worthington, 45, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenville to aiding and abetting others by making false statements about records required of a licensed firearms dealer.

The charge stemmed from Worthington’s use of sheriff’s department stationery to authorize the purchase of weapons for Blackwater’s use.

Worthington, who remains free on $25,000 unsecured bond, faces up to five years in prison, followed by up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

Worthington, who was a sheriff’s major in the Camden Sheriff’s Office, also had worked simultaneously as a part-time firearms instructor at Blackwater near Moyock, the company now known as Xe. He resigned from the sheriff’s department in April 2010, citing unspecified medical reasons.

His departure came less than a couple months after five executives of Xe Services, including former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, were charged with violating a series of firearms laws.

Those charges resulted from a weapons agreement Worthington signed with Jackson some five years earlier. That agreement came to light in 2008 when agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided Blackwater’s armory and seized 34 high-powered automatic assault rifles.

Under the agreement Worthington signed with Jackson, Blackwater agreed to purchase 17 Romanian-made AK-47 rifles and Bushmaster rifles for use by the Camden Sheriff’s Department. The weapons, however, would remain stored in Blackwater’s armory at the contractor’s compound.

Federal investigators said the deal helped Blackwater sidestep a federal law prohibiting private parties from buying automatic weapons manufactured after 1986. Only law enforcement agencies are allowed to own such weapons.

Shortly after the federal raid on Blackwater, Perry denied entering into an agreement to help the contractor avoid gun laws. He said that Blackwater bought the automatic weapons for the department’s newly formed SWAT team and that the company intended to train his deputies in their use.

We never bought the argument that Camden County needed a SWAT team with 34 automatic weapons, and apparently the U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t buy it either.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Blackwater wanted the illegal weapons for their own security contracts and operations and the Camden County Sheriff’s Department simply provided the means.

After Worthington’s guilty plea two weeks ago, Perry said his office has been cooperating in the investigation and that neither he nor the sheriff’s department is a target in the probe.

Meanwhile, a number of questions we asked over a year ago remain unanswered.

We urged Perry to explain, if it was his plan to acquire weapons for a SWAT team, why wasn’t his name on the Blackwater weapons purchase documents? As the chief law officer in the county, he should be signing off on such huge weapons deals, not a deputy.

We also wondered why Perry didn’t consult with the county attorney before the agreement was signed with Blackwater. He made a point of consulting with County Attorney John Morrison after the ATF raid in 2008. “I feel personally nothing has been done wrong, but I wanted to make sure,” Perry said. But wouldn’t it have made more sense to check before his office agreed to the weapons deal?

Have the commissioners taken action to ensure that its sheriff’s department doesn’t overstep its authority again?

Since the case is apparently still ongoing, it would be wrong to assume anyone else’s involvement. We don’t know whom else, if anyone, Worthington will implicate.

Meanwhile, for the sake of the sheriff’s department and county residents, all the facts must come out soon so Camden can put this to rest. The county commissioners should insure that the facts do come out.