A man accused of headbutting a Newnan pastor in 2018 was found not guilty this week.
A Coweta County jury found Levi William Beyer not guilty of aggravated battery. He had been charged with attacking Pastor Tamarkus Cook on a property near St. Smyrna Baptist Church, where Cook is the pastor.
Matthew McCord, Beyer’s attorney, said his client was relieved and glad the case was over.
“In the end, it just came down to the jury weighing the credibility of the witnesses. After they did that, they found my client not guilty,” McCord told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Beyer turned himself in after an arrest warrant was issued in December 2018 and was later released on $10,000 bond. He was indicted on one count of aggravated battery in June 2019.
Cook told a Coweta sheriff’s deputy he was driving on Henry Road near his church on Nov. 28, 2018, when he saw a man near a building his church owned. Upon approaching, Cook said he was headbutted and suffered cuts under and above his right eye, the AJC previously reported. According to an incident report, Cook then pulled out a Tarus .380 handgun and fired two or three rounds in the air to scare off his alleged attacker.
The sheriff’s office identified Beyer because Cook said he remembered the license plate of the truck as the man drove off. Beyer admitted to deputies he was involved in the altercation, but said Cook was the attacker.
Beyer had arranged to meet up with another person there after scheduling an encounter on a dating app, but he said Cook approached him and he didn’t know if he was going to be robbed or hurt, authorities said at the time.
Beyer’s attorney said the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a backlog throughout the state, contributed to his client’s case taking so long to reach a jury. McCord said the Coweta County Superior Court did the best it could to prosecute the case as fast as possible.
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