ATLANTA– A Georgia judge on Wednesday reprimanded state prosecutors for mishandling confidential emails between an attorney and three Atlanta activists accused of extortion in connection with violent protests against a planned police and firefighter training center that critics are calling “Cop City.”
Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams said the Georgia attorney general’s office committed “gross negligence” by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included in a massive trove of evidence distributed months ago to investigators and dozens of other defense attorneys representing 61 defendants charged last year in a comprehensive indictment for extortion against the “Stop Cop City” movement.
During Wednesday’s hearing, defense attorneys for Marlon Kautz, Adele MacLean and Savannah Patterson asked Adams to disqualify prosecutors from the case and drop the charges, saying the court needed to “send a message” that such egregious errors cannot be tolerated.
“They’re not bad, they’re not evil, but there has to be deterrence,” defense attorney Don Samuel said of the prosecution. Samuel said he was shocked to learn that his emails were included as evidence in a report prepared by low-level intelligence analysts with the Atlanta Police Department who searched the defendants’ Gmail accounts after authorities executed a search warrant on the defendants’ homes and their Google accounts.
Adams did not comment on the matter, saying she was unsure whether the errors would be enough to disqualify Deputy Attorney General John Fowler and his team from pursuing the case. But she said she found the investigators’ conduct “outrageous” and that it is “not credible” that prosecutors continue to claim they had no idea the confidential emails were in the Gmail accounts.
“To suggest that you didn’t consider that there could be communications between … any of these defendants and their attorney is unbelievable to me,” Adams said. “I just don’t believe that.”
Prosecutors have acknowledged the error, but insist that no investigator has read the intelligence report containing the confidential emails. They also argue that the error was not intentional and therefore should not be grounds for disqualification.
“When we realized what had happened, I was absolutely sickened by it,” Assistant Attorney General Hallie Scott Dixon told the judge. “It was extremely upsetting as a prosecutor to find out that this had happened.”
Samuel said he has repeatedly urged prosecutors to hire a “filter team” to review evidence and isolate confidential communications before investigators could dig into them. But he said prosecutors still haven’t assembled a team and it’s far too late to fix the situation: “The horse is out of the barn — the herd of horses is out of the barn.”
Atlanta Solidarity Fund leaders Kautz, MacLean and Patterson were arrested in May 2023 on charges of money laundering and charity fraud when investigators their Atlanta home searcheddealing a blow to the organization that has played a central role in rescuing countless “Stop Cop City” activists in recent years.
The three were subsequently included in 61 racketeering indictments filed last August. Authorities allege the Atlanta Solidarity Fund was used to funnel money to finance violent acts against property in the city of Atlanta, including the DeKalb County site where the facility is being built.
Protesters and civil rights groups have condemned the racketeering charges and accused Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, of imposing tough charges to silence a movement that has mobilized environmentalists and anti-police protesters across the country. Opponents say the 85-acre, $110 million facility will exacerbate the militarization of police and harm the environment in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood.
Despite various attacks on the contractors’ site and equipment Construction on the training center has continued in recent years. Advocates say the city needs to replace outdated facilities and that it is important to better train officers to prevent improper use of force.
Samuel said the emails that were mishandled contained “serious, substantive” messages about legal strategy, anti-money laundering laws and how the state of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act work. He also gave the judge copies of some of the emails so Adams could read them privately so she could get a better idea of what the messages contained.
Adams said she would consider the case and told prosecutors she hoped they would learn a lesson about what can happen if they decide to “proceed with a charge of this magnitude.”