A Paulding County man once accused of trying to threaten a key figure in the Atlanta bribery investigation will soon be released from prison, his attorney told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday.
Shandarrick Barnes is expected to be released from state custody on Thursday, which would be nearly three weeks after charges against him were dropped in the case, attorney Ted Salter said.
Barnes remained in prison on a parole violation stemming from his indictment, and his lawyer had been pushing for Barnes’ release since charges were dropped.
Barnes had been indicted earlier this year by a Fulton County grand jury in relation to a bizarre September 2015 incident in which a brick went through the living room window at the home of contractor Elvin "E.R." Mitchell Jr. The brick carried a written message for Mitchell to keep quiet. Dead rats also were left on his property.
Barnes had pleaded not guilty in the case and Salter has said his client did nothing wrong.
Mitchell pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to commit bribery in a scandal that has rocked City Hall. Mitchell admitted to conspiring to pay more than $1 million in bribes to an unnamed third party under the belief some of the money would go to one or more city officials with influence over city contracts.
At the time of the brick incident, Mitchell told Atlanta police he was working with the feds on a case.
Barnes was arrested in connection with the incident more than a year later, in November 2016, and later indicted on counts of making terroristic threats and criminal damage to property. Barnes has not been charged in the federal bribery probe.
Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard's office dropped the charges June 22 and later said it couldn't proceed with the case because county prosecutors were not given access to key evidence collected by federal investigators. That evidence includes a purported confession tape.
Barnes once worked for a former executive at one of Mitchell’s companies. That executive, Mitzi Bickers, is a reverend and political consultant who played a key role in Mayor Kasim Reed’s 2009 election and worked in Reed’s administration from 2010 to 2013.
Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records related to her from the city of Atlanta and Clayton County, where she now works as a chaplain for Clayton Sheriff Victor Hill.
Last week, the AJC reported on a letter filed in Mitchell's divorce case in which a lawyer for Mitchell's wife alleged the contractor may have staged the act of vandalism after he started working for the feds. A lawyer for E.R. Mitchell in the divorce case called that and other allegations in the letter "bizarre."
