Acquitted defendant in Atlanta cheating trial: ‘I knew I was innocent’
Retired schoolteacher Dessa Curb could barely speak for a long while after a jury acquitted her of having any role in cheating at Atlanta Public Schools.
She sobbed in her joy. And she sobbed for her co-defendants who were convicted and are looking at many years in prison.
Her lawyer, Sanford Wallack, walked with her to the end of a hallway so she could compose herself.
Then she said: “I’m happy. It’s justice.
“I just thank God that I’m out. I’m going to continue to pray for …” she said, unable to finish the sentence. She waved in the direction of her former co-defendants and friends.
Curb taught special-education children for more than 20 years.
It was because of one of those years at Dobbs Elementary School that she was charged with racketeering and two counts of false statements and writings. One witness, a paraprofessional, testified Curb told her to erase answers on a stack of Criterion-Referenced Competency Test answer sheets Curb left on a table while she took the children out to play.
Curb is a slight, quiet women, much unlike the screaming teacher former paraprofessional Naomi Williams described when she testified against her in January.
Curb said Wednesday she never doubted she would be acquitted.
The jury said she was not guilty of conspiring to cheat on the 2009 CRCT and two counts of false statements and writings — one count that said she corrected students’ answers on the CRCT and another that accused her of falsely telling a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent that she had no part in the cheating.
“I knew I was innocent and I knew God had my back,” Curb said.
Curb said she was going to spend her first hours free of criminal charges relaxing with her husband and attending church Wednesday night.
