Even though the Georgia Department of Corrections received court orders Tuesday afternoon to immediately release the one-time head of construction for DeKalb County schools and her ex-husband, the two remained in prison Tuesday evening.
Their lawyers spent much of the day trying to find out when former district chief operating officer Pat Reid, who oversaw the district’s construction program, and her ex-husband, architect Tony Pope, could walk out of their respective prisons, while DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James tried to stop it by asking the Georgia Court of Appeals to step in.
DeKalb County Judge Cynthia Becker issued an order Monday with an order that Reid and Pope should get a new trial because the key witness against them wasn’t truthful and that they should be released from prison while their cases were pending. Both were convicted of racketeering for manipulating school construction contracts, while the star witness against them, former schools Superintendent Crawford Lewis, testified after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor, avoiding the possibility he would also be convicted of racketeering.
The Department of Corrections received the court orders early Tuesday afternoon. It was not known how long it will take to release Reid and Pope.
Earlier Tuesday, James also filed documents saying he was going to take the fight against Becker one step up on the judicial ladder — to the Supreme Court.
In the motion, James writes that Becker’s order to vacate the convictions of Reid, once the districts chief operating officer, and Pope, is just the latest decision she has made that suggests a bias against Lewis.
Lewis was also charged with racketeering, but days before the trial was to begin a year ago, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, with the hope of getting no jail time if he testified truthfully.
When it came time to sentence Lewis after the trial, Becker ignored the agreement that he would get 12 months probation, and instead sentenced him to 12 months in jail, saying she didn't think he was honest when he testified.
She would not allow him a bond so he could be released while he appealed until she could hold a hearing after returning from a trip out of town. In the next few days, the Court of Appeals ruled the law requires her to set a bond because it was a misdemeanor, so another judge in DeKalb decided the terms under which Lewis could be released.
“This is extremely reminiscent of Judge Becker’s conduct,” James wrote in a motion asking the Georgia Court of Appeals to reverse Becker’s ruling from Monday.
He also writes in the motion that Becker did not have the authority to rule as she did because she has not yet received the officials documents from the Court of Appeals decision from Friday in which it said Becker should honor the sentencing agreement because to do otherwise would jeopardize the convictions of Reid and Pope, who are now in state prisons.
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