Victim of beating at Cracker Barrel said justice not served, she may file civil suit

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By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Beating victim Tasha Hill said Sunday that she did not believe justice has been served in the sentencing of a man to six months in jail for beating her at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.

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MORROW POLICE Troy Dale West

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The Army reservist also said she may file a civil suit against her attacker, Troy Dale West, or the restaurant.

Hill said she was disturbed by West’s claims during his trial, which ended with a plea Friday, that she spit on him and that is what prompted him to “punch and kick me” in the incident inside the vestibule of the restaurant, much of it captured on surveillance video.

“One of the things is the controversy if I spat,” Hill told reporters at a news conference Sunday afternoon at New Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta. “It was really shocking to hear that debate. I want the public to know I did not spit on the man.”

The indictment against West had accused him of striking Hill in September 2009 at the Cracker Barrel in Morrow when she asked him to be careful, saying he had almost hit her daughter with the restaurant door.

Hill said Sunday that she has fired Kip Jones, the attorney who represented her during West's trial in Clayton County. She has hired one of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell’s defense attorneys, Mawuli Mel Davis, to handle any civil suit.

Former Atlanta City Councilman Derrick Boazman, who organized the news conference, said he may file complaints Monday to the Georgia Bar Association for what he alleges was the mishandling of West’s prosecution by either Clayton County District Attorney Tracy Graham Lawson or Hill’s attorney, Jones.

The trial ended suddenly in a plea deal struck Friday afternoon between the DA, Superior Court Judge Geronda V. Carter and West’s defense attorney, Tony Axam. West was facing a maximum of 44 years in prison before the deal that got him six months.

Lawson said Sunday that the prosecution had sought a four-year sentence, but the judge dropped the sentence to three years, with only six months to serve in prison. West had already served 40 days in jail awaiting his trial, so he will be free in about 4 1/2 months.

Boazman charged that either Lawson or Jones has withheld information about what led to the plea deal.

Boazman charged that the deal was struck only after Hill’s own attorney appeared to have given information to the prosecution, judge and defense attorney that Hill had erred during testimony about an alleged meeting with a Cracker Barrel employee.

Lawson said Jones came to her Wednesday and said that his client “had been mistaken on the stand.”

The district attorney said she felt obligated to tell West’s defense attorney. On Friday afternoon, Jones came back to her and told her he had been mistaken, Hill had not been in the meeting with a Cracker Barrel employee.

Lawson said Sunday that revelations during the trial persuaded her to seek a deal. A Cracker Barrel employee who claimed to have witnessed the confrontation couldn’t have because the witness was in the back of the restaurant at the time.

She said two "very credible" witnesses said they saw Hill spit on West. The DA said Hill was, additionally, involved in two cases involving violent and verbal altercations and is currently charged with disorderly conduct from an incident this summer.

Hill is accused of threatening to shoot two boys, claiming they burglarized her home, Lawson said. “She threatened to put hollow-point bullets in their heads,” she said.

Attempts by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to reach Jones for comment Sunday afternoon were unsuccessful.

Hill said the beating and the trial were difficult, and the sentence West received was "devastating" and "an insult to me."

She told reporters she’s seen stiffer sentences given to people for abusing animals.

“[The sentence] diminished me and my daughter.”

Hill said Sunday that she believes, in the end, “justice will be served.” Her new attorney, Davis, said there is no recourse left to appeal the case since it was a plea deal. Any legal action will have to be a civil suit.