Three Cop City protest organizers charged with money laundering after raiding their Atlanta home

Three activists who aided protesters at Atlanta’s newly proposed police and fire training center have been arrested for money laundering and charitable fraud.

Marlon Scott Kautz, 39, Savannah D. Patterson, 30, and Adele Maclean, 42, were arrested Wednesday in a dramatic raid on their home.

Leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund are backing the movement against the planned center, which opponents are calling “Cop City.”

Activists have been trying to block construction of the police training ground since its announcement by then-mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, in 2021.

That facility would occupy 85 acres of woodland southeast of Atlanta. Activists have argued that the $90 million project will irreversibly destroy the local environment and also strengthen the police force.

The Fund, part of the Network for Strong Communities, has provided bail and other legal remedies to protesters.

“The GBI, along with the Atlanta Police Department, has arrested three people on charges arising from its ongoing investigation into individuals responsible for numerous criminal acts at the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center site and other locations in the Atlanta metropolitan area.” , the Georgia The Bureau of Investigations reported on Wednesday.

Footage from the raid posted online shows at least 10 officers in full gear and guns raised entering the activists’ home east of downtown Atlanta.

The house where the activists were arrested is owned by Kautz and MacLean. On the walls are messages like ‘NO COPS’ and ‘COP WATCH’.

Kautz, Patterson and Maclean’s attorney, Don Samuel, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he had not yet seen the warrants and was trying to determine the basis for the allegations.

“I know what the crimes are being alleged, but I don’t know exactly what the state claims these three people did or how they were supposedly involved in charitable fraud,” he said.

The activists’ warrants, viewed by DailyMail.com, accuse the trio of “deception by using funds raised through the state-registered 501c(3) Network for Strong Communities (NFSC) to promote the actions in part of Defend the Atlanta Forest (DTAF). ), a group classified as domestic violence extremists by the US Department of Homeland Security.”

Prosecutors say the group used Network for Strong Communities funds to provide assistance to members of DTAF. The group is accused of using the money to buy construction and camping supplies, gasoline, signs, COVID testing and forest clearance supplies.

DTAF said on Instagram that the arrests were “another desperate and tactless move by the state to crush a rapidly growing social movement.”

In March, Kautz said Atlanta News First that the Atlanta Solidarity Fund was raising money to help “Cop City” protesters post bail.

“As far as we know, all the people arrested yesterday were bystanders who actually participated in a music festival,” he said.

DailyMail.com has contacted the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations for comment.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp celebrated the arrest on social media on Wednesday.

“We are proud to say that those who supported their illegal action have also been arrested and will face justice,” he said. “These criminals facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism with no regard for others, while watching communities face the destructive consequences of their actions.”

“Today’s announcement is a reminder that we will hunt down every member of a criminal organization, from violent foot soldiers to their indifferent leaders. We will not rest until they are arrested, tried and punished.’

DeKalb County District Attorney, for her part, said in a statement that she believes in the right to protest peacefully and the right for organizations to choose to administer legal bail funds.

However, she said she does not condone “violence or threats of violence” or that “crimes, such as money laundering and charitable fraud, to support illegal acts will not be tolerated.”

Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, called the arrests an “extreme provocation” in a statement.

“Rescuing protesters exercising their constitutionally protected rights is simply not a crime,” Regan said. “In fact, it is a historically grounded tradition in the same social and political movements that the City of Atlanta is proud of. Someone had to save civil rights activists in the 1960s — I think we can all agree that community support is not a crime.”

In March, Atlanta police released shocking footage of black-clad protesters breaking into the construction site for the planned police training center.

Nearly 150 rioters were seen entering the compound and immediately set off fireworks.

In April, environmental activist Manuel Paez Teran, 26, was shot and killed 57 times while protesting the site.

Activists have been smashing windows and damaging offices across the US as part of an ongoing protest against a proposal to build a sprawling police training facility in a forest outside of Atlanta.

Members of the Stop Cop City movement have taken credit for vandalism in 19 states over the past nine months, targeting companies like Amazon, Porsche and Wells Fargo.

The group has said they are targeting businesses based on their affiliation with the Atlanta Police Foundation and the proposed facility known as Cop City.