Obnoxious Breaking News! Not sure if it was an issue at Fulton County Jail or if that was the excuse used to by time for Dr. Beverly Hall to secure an attorney and for him have enough time to me with Paul Howard to get her bond lowered. She looks like she is not well. Her Attorney shared that she is still battling cancer.
Channel 2 Action News was there as Dr. Beverly Hall left the Fulton County Jail Tuesday night after posting bond.
Hall is accused of racketeering, theft and more. She is one of 35 APS employees named in an indictment brought against them for their involvement in the APS cheating scandal that rocked the district.
Hall arrived at the Fulton County Jail just after 7 p.m. Tuesday flanked by her attorneys who acted like body guards. Hall did not say a word as she made the long walk from her car to the front door of the jail.
“Dr. Hall cannot speak to the press. I made that very clear,” one of her attorneys told Channel 2′s Eric Philips as he questioned Hall on her way into the jail.
Hall would only point to her attorneys, careful not to violate a gag order her lawyers say she is under.
“Dr. Hall, I see that you’re smiling, why are you smiling?” Philips asked Hall.
Later, after her mugshot had been snapped, one of Hall’s attorneys did speak.
“Let me just say she’s being treated like everyone else, very professional,” former DeKalb County district attorney J. Tom Morgan told Philips.
Morgan also commented on her initial bond given by the grand jury last week of $7.5 million.
“I haven’t’ seen that in cases of genocide. The bond that we have, now that the DA’s office agreed to, is very reasonable considering there’s been no violent crime, no criminal history.
Hall’s bond was lowered to $200,000 earlier in the day. She left the Fulton County Jail with her attorneys just before 11 p.m. Tuesday after posting bond.
“It’s a very big relief. It means she will not be spending any time in jail while this process is moving forward,” Morgan told Channel 2′s Mark Winne earlier in the day. “The goal is to process her out as quickly as possible.”
Hall’s lead lawyer, Richard Deane, told Winne she’s innocent of the charges. Also on the team are David Bailey and Bettieanne Hart.
“You are the former chief of the appeals section for the Fulton County DA’s office, which is prosecuting the APS case?” Winne asked Hart.
“Yes. A couple of years ago I retired,” Hart said.
“I know Beverly personally. I am absolutely convinced of her innocence,” Morgan told Winne.
Morgan confirmed he joined the team Tuesday. He said job one, he suggested, was getting bond set.
“It is set at $200,000, however, $150,000 of that is her signature, which is a promise to come back. And then $50,000 is what we call a regular bond. She can post cash, she can use a bondsman, or she can pay the jail 10 percent,” Morgan said.
A representative for Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he was open to a bond reduction for the APS defendants and prosecutors have been meeting with defense lawyers.
Indictments too harsh?
As educators continue to turn themselves in at the Fulton County Jail, many are calling the cheating indictments too harsh for the educators.
Channel 2′s Dave Huddleston talked to members of the concerned black clergy in the Atlanta area who said the teachers are being made out to be common crooks.
“They should have their license suspended for two years, they could have their licensed revoked, jail time is not going to solve this problem of our children not being able to read and to write,” Rev. Tim McDonald told Huddleston.
Parent Chandra Gallashaw told Huddleston she originally thought APS educators were really helping her children.
She said two of her daughters are victims of the cheating scandal. Her oldest got a $200,000 scholarship to prestigious Middlebury College in Vermont, but lost it because she couldn’t do the work. She’s now at Wayne State in Detroit.
Gallashaw told Huddleston the teachers aren’t murderers, but had concerns about the education that was lost by not only her children, but hundreds of others.
She said she does feel sorry for the teachers, but it seems no one cares about the children and their future.
RICO hard to prosecute
The actual charge against these educators was originally created to bring down mobsters dealing in organized crime.
Channel 2′s Carl Willis talked to a former district attorney who said prosecutors could have a hard time making the charges stick.
Atlanta Public school educators are preparing their defenses amid the kind of attention, charges and bonds typically reserved for mobsters.
All of the defendants are facing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, also known as RICO.
Former DeKalb County D.A. Jeff Brickman told Willis that is a difficult crime to prove.
“If you can’t explain yourself or explain your case in simple terms then you’ve lost the jury, and if you’ve lost the jury things aren’t going to be going too well for the state,” Brickman said.
Brickman told Willis in a case like this simplicity is the key and so is establishing intent.
“Intent is a very subjective element in any crime. There’s not going to be, I imagine, a smoking gun piece of paper that says ‘the following 35 people hereby enter into an agreement, to a very formal agreement to break the law.’ That’s not going to happen,” Brickman said.
Beyond proving that cheating happened, the state has to establish a pattern of criminal behavior and prove that each defendant was directly operating or managing a criminal enterprise.
In this case, prosecutors have to prove there was a conspiracy to cheat on a standardized test, boost scores, and profit from bonuses.
“It is going to be a very interesting process. It’s going to take a significant amount of time and a tremendous amount of resources,” Brickman said.
Brickman said evidence can be pieced together from cooperating witnesses, exhibits introduced in trial, and from whistle-blowers.
