Georgia judge to toss landmark racketeering charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters

By R J RICO Associated Press ATLANTA AP A Georgia judge on Tuesday stated he will toss the racketeering charges against all defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call Cop City Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer revealed he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the indictments under Georgia s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law or RICO Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering affair ever filed against protesters in U S history Farmer declared during a hearing that Carr needed Gov Brian Kemp s permission to pursue the affair instead of the local district attorney Prosecutors earlier conceded to the judge that they did not obtain any such order It would have been real easy to just ask the governor Let me do this give me a letter Farmer announced The policies just weren t followed Five of the defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson Farmer commented Carr also didn t have the authority to pursue the arson charge though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand Farmer announced he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge stand though he mentioned he expects the prosecution to appeal regardless Deputy Attorney General John Fowler recounted Farmer that he believes the judge s decision is wholly incorrect The long-brewing disagreement over the training center erupted in January after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest that killed an activist who personnel disclosed had fired at them Numerous protests ensued with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out The defendants faced a wide variety of claims everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers to supplying food to protesters who were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper who had fatally shot the protester known as Tortuguita Each defendant faced up to years in prison on the RICO charge Carr who is running for governor had pursued the circumstance with Kemp hailing it as an critical step to combat out-of-state radicals that threaten the safety of our citizens and law enforcement But critics had decried the indictment as a politically motivated heavy-handed attempt to quash the movement Related Articles Black McDonald s operators detail history of alleged racial discrimination in lawsuit Backpage executives to be sentenced after testifying against site founder about the site s sex ads US military contractor argues against million awarded to Abu Ghraib detainees who were tortured How to defend a home from wildfire UC Berkeley researchers lessons from infernos US household income rose slightly last year roughly matching level Emerging in the wake of the racial justice protests the Stop Cop City movement gained nationwide recognition as it united anarchists environmental activists and anti-police protesters against the sprawling training center which was being built in a wooded area that was ultimately razed in DeKalb County Activists argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements The training center a priority of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens opened earlier this year despite years of protests and millions in cost overruns particular of which was due to the damage protesters caused and police executives demands to bolster assurance around the facility But over the past two years the situation had been bogged down in procedural issues with none of the defendants going to trial Farmer and the development s previous judge Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams had earlier been critical of prosecutors approach to the development with Adams saying the prosecution had committed gross negligence by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included among a giant cache of evidence that was shared between investigators and dozens of defense attorneys Prosecutors had repeatedly apologized for the delays and missteps but lamented the difficulty of handling such a sprawling episode though Farmer pointed out that it was prosecutors who decided to bring this -person elephant to court in the first place