Continuing coverage
The AJC has been following the saga of Bou Bou Phonesavanh since the botched raid in Habersham County occurred in May 2014. Read related stories and view photo galleries at our premium website, myAJC.com.
A Habersham County sheriff's deputy accused of providing false information in order to obtain an arrest warrant became on Wednesday the first person to be criminally charged after multiple investigations into a botched drug raid that maimed a toddler.
“Without her false statements, there was no probable cause to search the premises for drugs or to make the arrest,” acting U.S. Attorney John Horn said after bringing a four-count indictment against Nikki Autry, a 10-year law enforcement veteran. “And in this case, the consequences of the unlawful search were tragic.”
Nineteen-month-old Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh sustained severe injuries to his face and chest, along with possible brain damage, after a stun grenade deployed during the May 2014 raid landed in his playpen. The incident brought national attention to the issue of police militarization and led to the dissolution of the multi-agency Mountain Judicial Circuit Narcotics Criminal and Suppression Team, which, five years earlier, was involved in the fatal shooting of a pastor who inadvertently stepped into the middle of an undercover drug operation.
Bou Bou's parents will speak with the media on Thursday, said their attorney, Mawuli Davis, who declined comment. The family was awarded $964,000 in a settlement reached with Habersham's Board of County Commissioners.
Alecia Phonesavanh, Bou Bou’s mother, told The Atlanta Journal Constitution in May she was hopeful charges would be brought against all of the officers involved in the raid.
“I want to at least be able to tell my son that this is being made right,” she said. “I don’t want to have to tell him that the people who did this to him are cops and they got away with it.”
Autry’s attorney, Jeff Brickman said she has become the “sacrificial lamb in this case.”
He said his client “did not intentionally misrepresent anything” to the magistrate judge who signed off on an arrest warrant for Wanis Thonetheva, who later admitted to selling $50 worth of crystal methamphetamine to an undercover officer.
“She is devastated by the news,” Brickman said.
In bringing federal charges, prosecutors must prove Autry intended to mislead. Marietta criminal defense attorney Philip Holloway, who is not involved in the case, said their case will be a challenging one to make.
“Generally speaking, it is much more difficult to prove criminal violations of federal law than it is on a state level,” Holloway said.
According to the federal indictment, an informant, never before used by the NCIS team, and his roommate, who was not working with the task force, purchased meth from Thonetheva outside his mother’s house, where Bou Bou, his siblings and parents were staying after their home in Wisconsin burned down. There was no police surveillance verifying the purchase.
“Shortly afterwards, Autry presented an affidavit to a Habersham County magistrate judge falsely swearing that the NCIS informant made the purchase and that the NCIS informant was ‘a true and reliable informant’ who has provided information in the past that has led to criminal charges on individuals selling narcotics in Habersham County,” the indictment states.
The informant claimed there was heavy traffic “in and out of the residence,” prosecutors said, and based on that information the judge issued a “no-knock warrant for the residence
Two hours later, the raid was executed. Claims that there were armed guards, weapons and drugs at the residence were unfounded and Thonetheva, arrested the next day at his home without incident, was nowhere to be found.
Federal prosecutors launched their investigation last October after a Habersham grand jury, despite calling the raid "hurried and sloppy," declined to bring charges against any of the officers involved.
Documents obtained earlier this year by The AJC revealed that lawyers for the sheriff and the other officers were prepared to deny "false and misleading information was used in the search warrant application."
Despite that, Autry, 29, was forced to resign.
“She had no motivation” to lie,” Brickman said. “She’s a mom, she would never intentionally mislead a magistrate to get a search warrant.”
Brickman pointed out that Autry worked in tandem with her supervisor to draft the warrant application. She relayed information provided from “a number of sources,” he said.
“The decision to use a flash bang device was out of her control,” Brickman said. “She was not involved in that decision.”
The stun grenade was tossed into the home without first checking whether anyone was inside.
Autry agreed with the Habersham grand jury that the drug task force needed “more transparency, more supervision,” according to her lawyer.
Autry is set to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Gainesville where, Brickman said, she’ll enter a plea of not guilty.
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