A former DeKalb County police sergeant accused of ordering the beatings of four young suspects was found guilty on six counts Friday but avoided conviction on the most serious charges.
Anthony Remone Robinson, facing up to 14 years in prison, was taken into custody and will be sentenced Tuesday. A jury deliberated for three days but deadlocked on four of the charges against Robinson, a 15-year law enforcement veteran.
He was found guilty of two counts of violating his oath of office, both felonies, three counts of simple assault and one count of battery. Robinson faced a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison if convicted on all 15 counts, including 10 felonies.
Defense attorney William McKenney said the verdict demonstrated jurors did not find former officers Blake Norwood and Arthur Parker credible. They pleaded guilty last month to lesser charges in exchange for testifying against their former supervisor.
“They got the deal of a lifetime and the D.A. was wrong,” McKenney said, adding that his client is a “good man” whose dismissal from the force should have been enough.
“This was just piling on,” McKenney said of the criminal charges.
DeKalb District Attorney Robert James declined comment.
The case against Robinson stemmed from a November 2011 incident at police headquarters involving Norwood and Parker. Travarrius Williams, who was in custody over a suspected burglary, spotted Parker in the police station and accused him of wrongly arresting his brother.
Robinson overheard Williams and told the 18-year-old suspect, "We don't let people disrespect us like that in our house," said DeKalb Assistant District Attorney Buffy Thomas in her opening statement.
According to Thomas, Robinson then ordered Norwood and Parker to “take (Williams) behind the shed and tighten him up.” The shed refers to the area where officers parked their off-duty vehicles.
Parker interpreted that as a command to “beat him up,” the prosecutor said.
Another officer spotted the beating and reported it to his commanding officer. An internal affairs investigation was promptly opened, during which Robinson was alleged to have fed Norwood and Parker a narrative accusing Williams, the suspect, of spitting on them.
Norwood eventually turned against Robinson and later told prosecutors about a 2010 incident involving three teens, ages 15 and 16, suspected in a car theft. Norwood said he and Parker, along with another officer, were ordered to handcuff the teens and beat them.
Next: More Trials Against Officers
Another former DeKalb officer, Tarik J. Crumpton, is scheduled to go to trial in April on a 19-count indictment of perjury, making false statements and violation of oath by a public officer.
An internal affairs investigation, obtained by The AJC, revealed that Crumpton wrongfully detained and beat Brian Peterson in October 2010 while working off-duty as a security guard at a Stone Mountain sports bar.
No trial date has been set for former officer Robert Olsen, who last month became the first law enforcement officer in Georgia since 2010 to face prosecution for the shooting death of a civilian. Olsen was charged with shooting and killing a naked and unarmed veteran outside an apartment building in Chamblee in 2014.
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