This week, the Georgia Lawyer Common’s Workplace dropped a few of the extra frivolous fees within the “Cease Cop Metropolis” case.
As Cause has beforehand reported, state prosecutors have indicted greater than 60 individuals on racketeering fees associated to the protests towards the development of a police coaching facility close to Atlanta; opponents name the mission “Cop Metropolis” and march beneath the banner “Cease Cop Metropolis.” Nearly all of these indicted weren’t alleged to have dedicated any crimes extra extreme than misdemeanor trespassing.
5 defendants have been moreover charged with arson and home terrorism. Prosecutors additionally singled out three others—Marlon Kautz, Adele MacLean, and Savannah Patterson, who function the Atlanta Solidarity Fund (ASF), a nonprofit bail fund utilized by Cease Cop Metropolis protesters—with 15 counts every of cash laundering.
In a motion filed September 17, Deputy Lawyer Common John Fowler requested that “the Court docket enter an order of Nolle Prosequi on Counts 4-18” of the indictment—the 15 cash laundering fees. Nolle prosequi is the method by which a prosecutor withdraws all or a part of a legal criticism or a plaintiff withdraws a lawsuit.
“Caselaw exists that helps the place of each the Defendants and the State,” Fowler wrote, “however given potential vagueness on Counts 4-18, the State chooses to not proceed on these counts right now. Nevertheless, the State reserves the fitting to re-present these fees to a Grand Jury.” A consultant of the state legal professional basic’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark by press time.
Fulton County Superior Court docket Decide Kimberly Esmond Adams granted the motion the identical day. All three stay beneath indictment for racketeering, together with 58 different defendants.
“It is a recognition of what we, police, and prosecutors have identified for a very long time: we run a legit nonprofit, not a cash laundering operation, and there has by no means been any proof in any other case,” Kautz stated in an announcement supplied to Cause.
The case has been questionable from the beginning: Atlanta police raided the ASF headquarters in Might 2023 and arrested Kautz, MacLean, and Patterson. The indictment issued later that 12 months charged every of them with 15 counts of cash laundering. Every depend is tied to a predicate act, alleging that the defendants used bail fund cash in service of protesting Cop Metropolis: In a single instance, prosecutors allege that the defendants “transferr[ed] $93.04” to a different social gathering “for tenting provides, opposite to the legal guidelines of this State, the great order, peace, and dignity thereof.” For this—and 14 different related examples—the state charged the defendants with an offense that carries maximum penalties of a $500,000 high quality and 5 years in jail.
“What’s stunning is that the authorities have gotten this far earlier than having to confess they haven’t any case,” MacLean stated within the assertion supplied to Cause. “They performed in depth invasive surveillance towards us and different organizers, licensed a militarized SWAT raid on our house, jailed us, closed ASF’s financial institution accounts and reduce us off from donors—all beneath the false pretense that we have been laundering cash.”
Earlier this 12 months, the defendants accused police and prosecutors of mishandling proof after the Might 2023 raid, when privileged emails with attorneys have been submitted to investigators and to the court docket.
“To counsel that you just didn’t ponder the likelihood that there may be communication between…any of those defendants and their lawyer is unimaginable to me,” stated Adams, the decide listening to the case. “I merely do not consider that.”
The defendants moved to take away the legal professional basic’s workplace from the case and dismiss the costs; Adams denied the motion however famous that “the Court docket is extraordinarily troubled by the State’s gross negligence when dealing with and disclosing probably privileged communications” and “the State is strongly admonished that future misconduct will lead to further sanctions as decided acceptable.”
