Half my emails over this long weekend were about Cherokee school board member Kelly Marlow. One was from Marlow herself.

Most emails were about the news that police charged Marlow and two other people with filing a false police report claiming the Cherokee County schools superintendent tried to hit them with his car.

According to the AJC:

Kelly Marlow, a Cherokee County School Board member, and Robert Trim, a political adviser turned themselves in at 8 a.m. Saturday after Canton police issued warrants for their arrest on Friday. Marlow and Trim are charged with felony false statements, according to Canton police spokesman Pacer Cordry, in a statement.

Barbara Knowles, the Cherokee County Republican Party secretary, also has a warrant out for her arrest, but as of Saturday evening, she had not turned herself in. She is being charged with a misdemeanor false report of a crime and felony false statements, Cordry said.

On June 13 Knowles filed a police report with Canton police saying that Cherokee County Schools Superintendent Frank Petruzielo tried to strike her, Marlow and Trim while they were crossing the street in front of the Painted Pig Tavern in Canton. Knowles did tell police that the group was crossing the street illegally and not in a cross walk, Cordry said.

“Knowles stated that she and Marlow and Trim had just left a heated school board meeting,” Cordry said.

The following day the report was turned over to the criminal investigations division. “After a thorough investigation, Canton Detectives were able to determine that Knowles had made a false police report and Knowles, Marlow, and Trim had all provided false statements to detectives,” Cordry said.

“As I indicated when I was informed of the report being filed against me, this is a very serious allegation that has no basis in fact,” Petruzielo said in a statement to the Cherokee Tribune.

Oddly, Marlow herself emailed a media statement prior to turning herself into police that had nothing to do with this serious charge, which could very well end her political career. Instead, she sent out a statement defending her complaint to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools about the school board chair and Petruzielo.

In her complaint to SACS last month, Marlow alleged that the chairman of the school board has “lost control of superintendent and staff" and the “public’s confidence in the chair is eroding."

Among the comments in her statement: “I now fully understand why parents, teachers, future, current and former employees and sadly even board members associated with the Cherokee County School District tremble with such fear when challenging the status quo. If you have followed this situation, you have witnessed a clear, calculated, unprecedented smear campaign.”

In an email, I asked Marlow about the police charge that she lodged a false complaint against the superintendent, but she has not responded to my request for a comment.

Since her election, Marlow has styled herself a maverick reformer whose demands for honesty and fiscal accountability are being met with derision and duplicity.  She has single-handedly turned the Cherokee school board into an ongoing soap opera. She has her defenders, who contend that the school board has been too obliging to Petruzielo and that Marlow’s dramatic stands are warranted.

But these criminal charges take this drama to a whole other level.