DeKalb County Court Puts Hold on Release of Convicts from School Corruption Case

The Georgia Court of Appeals has approved an immediate delay on the release of Pat Reid and Tony Pope, two DeKalb County convicts involved in a county school’s racketeering scandal.

Prosecutors filed an emergency request for this delay on Wednesday after Judge Cynthia Becker ruled to have the convicts released and their conviction overturned.

The appellate court responded in their unsigned approval order that the judge cannot overturn a conviction that remains under their jurisdiction, according to a report from The Atlanta Journal.

In her court order, Becker cited nine instances of a “lack of complete and truthful” information in former DeKalb Superintendent Crawford Lewis’s court testimony, making his testimony no longer sufficient to implicate the DeKalb pair. Reid’s attorney told WSB-TV that Becker’s ruling will make prosecution in a retrial challenging without their key witness.

Convicted last December for racketeering and theft, former DeKalb County Schools Chief Operating Officer Pat Reid and ex-husband and construction contractor Tony Pope respectively received sentences of 15 and eight years in prison. In their conviction, prosecutors argued that Reid arranged for the district to pay Pope more than $1.4 million for construction contracts of which he should not have been the beneficiary. Both individuals have currently served 10 months of their sentences.

Patch file photo

Related Links:

• Jury Selection Continues in DeKalb Schools Racketeering Case
• Convictions in DeKalb Schools Racketeering Trial Thrown Out
• Does Crawford Lewis Deserve Jail Time?

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