What’s next?
Even though the trial is over for Pat Reid and Tony Pope, there are still some legal steps that will be taken in an effort to overturn the convictions or get new trials. At the same time, Crawford Lewis will try to withdraw his guilty plea and force prosecutors to take it to trial. It is not clear if they would pursue the original felony racketeering and theft charges against him, the misdemeanor obstruction charge to which he pleaded guilty, or drop the case completely.
Former DeKalb school COO Pat Reid
Her role: Defendant
Her outcome: Sentenced to serve 15 years in prison followed by 10 years probation. She also will repay the district the $2,531.66 it spent repairing the county-issued Ford Explorer she tried to buy at one-third its value but returned when the investigation began.
What's next: Reid will be held in the DeKalb County Jail until the Department of Corrections takes her into custody.
She will first go to the Lee Arrendale State Prison Habersham County in northeast Georgia where she will be assessed and given a security ranking and eventually assigned to one of three prisons women’s prison.
Tony Pope
His role: Defendant
His outcome: Sentenced to serve 8 years in prison
What's next: Will be held in the DeKalb County Jail until the Georgia Department of Corrections takes him to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson about 50 miles south of Atlanta He will be assessed and given a security level and then assigned to one of the 28 prisons for men.
Crawford Lewis
His role: Defendant
His outcome: Sentenced to 12 months in the DeKalb County Jail
What's next: His lawyers will file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea to obstruction, a misdemeanor. If that is granted, he could be tried on the original felony charges or on the misdemeanor charge.
Judge: Cynthia Becker
District Attorney: Robert James
IN-DEPTH COVERAGE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke stories at the end of 2009 questioning school construction contracts that involved architect Tony Pope, who was married to the DeKalb County school district’s chief operating officer who was in charge of such projects. Soon afterward, the AJC also reported that Superintendent Crawford Lewis and COO Pat Reid had bought their county cars at deeply discounted prices.
The AJC published nearly 20 stories more before the three were indicted in May 2010 and has continued to track the case as the indictment went through three different versions, the key investigator and two prosecutors resigned, and it came to trial 3 1/2 years later.
TIMELINE
Oct. 8, 2004: Crawford Lewis becomes DeKalb superintendent and later hires Pat Reid to oversee construction of new schools funded by the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
May 2010: Lewis, Reid, her husband Tony Pope and Reid's assistant are indicted. (The assistant is later dismissed from the case, then dies.) Lewis is fired.
May 2012: The DeKalb district attorney brings a superseding indictment against Lewis and the others.
July 18: Another amended indictment further shrinks the case against Lewis, Reid and Pope.
Oct. 16: Lewis pleads guilty to a misdemeanor.
Oct. 28: Start of trial against Reid and Pope, with Lewis testifying against his former co-defendants.
Nov. 15: The jury begins deliberating.
Nov. 20: The jury reaches a verdict.
Dec. 9: Reid and Pope are sentenced; a judge rejects Lewis' plea agreement that spared him jail time.
Former DeKalb County School Superintendent Crawford Lewis had lost his job and his reputation but he expected his legal troubles would be over Monday with his liberty intact.
Instead, a judge who said she was offended that Lewis had violated the public’s trust and told him, “Your behavior was abhorrent,” ordered him to jail.
Lewis was handcuffed and escorted out of Judge Cynthia Becker’s courtroom, sentenced to 12 months in the DeKalb County Jail instead of 12 months probation that was part of the bargain he made when he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
His attorneys plan to fight the jail sentence, by withdrawing his guilty plea.
Sentenced along with Lewis were Pat Reid, the school system’s former chief operating officer; and Tony Pope, her ex-husband, an architect, who were convicted last month of racketeering and theft.
Reid and Pope also received exceptionally stiff sentences, even though they were considered first offenders, which means their convictions will be erased once they have completed their sentences. Reid, 54, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, then another 10 years on probation. Pope, 56, was sentenced to eight years in prison and 12 years probation. Pope’s probation time could be cut short if he pays back the $712,000 he overbilled for renovations at Columbia High School. Both could get out sooner, on parole, but only after having served at least 80 percent of their time.
The judge made it clear the sentences were meant as a message in a troubled county.
Lewis pleaded guilty in mid October to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction for interfering with a criminal investigation of him and Reid. That was less than two weeks before he was to go on trial along with Reid and Pope on racketeering and theft charges. Under the plea agreement, Lewis testified that Reid and Pope manipulated school district contracts to benefit Pope’s firm, A. Vincent Pope & Associates. Pope’s company had been prohibited from getting additional school work as long as his wife, Reid, was over the school system’s construction program.
Becker said, “I made it clear I was not impressed” with Lewis’ testimony. “He was a public official. This was on his watch.”
District Attorney Robert James declined to discuss Lewis’ case because defense lawyers have said they will move to withdraw the guilty plea because Lewis was sentenced to jail rather than probation. But James said he was happy with the punishment for Reid and Pope.
“The jury spoke and they spoke clearly,” said James, who was not in the office when the first indictment was returned 3 1/2 years ago but was the county’s chief prosecutor when it was twice revised.
The ex-school officials’ corruption charges weren’t the only ones pending in DeKalb County. Former CEO Burrell Ellis is to go on trial next year, and a recent grand jury report recommended criminal investigations for several former and current county employees
Faye Andresen, a parent who served on a volunteer panel that oversaw the construction projects at the center of the the Reid and Pope trial, said she hoped the message in the sentences would stop a “slow slide into corruption” by the county political elite.
“In DeKalb County right now, we’re having a hard time deciding what’s right and what’s wrong,” Andresen said.
Even though Reid and Pope have been in the DeKalb County Jail since they were convicted Nov. 20, they were allowed to shed their jail-issued jumpsuits and wear street clothes to their sentencing, which is not common. Friends and family who came to plead for mercy for them heard the two approach moments before they entered the courtroom as their handcuffs were removed and then they were forced to shuffle in, chains clinking, as their gaits were restricted by leg irons.
Pope smiled and greeted his current wife, his brother, an ex-wife, his children and other relatives as he approached his seat while Reid was more subdued. Both used folded napkins to wipe away tears as friends and relatives offered reasons the judge should spare them. It was the only time they have showed much emotion publicly since the case began with the first of three indictments more than 3 1/2 years ago.
Pope’s brother told of how they grew up with a father who worked for the State Department for four decades and taught them “to serve something greater than ourselves … For Tony to go after a few thousand dollars is not Tony,” said Michael Pope. “Our father did not raise us that way. I beg you to keep this guy in this community.”
Two of Reid’s sisters described growing up in a family of eight children.
“I don’t believe she’s … serving anyone in jail,” said Debra Bloom, the youngest sister.
Becker said while the two did not need to be rehabilitated, they needed to be punished for what they cost the district and schoolchildren.
“Punishment is appropriate and necessary when we are dealing with public trust,” she said.
Despite the sentences, the case is far from over.
Lewis’ lawyer tried to withdraw the guilty plea when Becker said she was rejecting prosecutors’ recommendation.
“Court is over. He goes back there,” Becker said, indicating the courthouse holding cells.
Attorney Michael Brown said he would file papers Tuesday to withdraw the plea.
Regardless of what happens, Lewis is still eligible to draw tens of thousands of dollars a year in public retirement benefits because he was hired in 1977, before a state law was passed that means school employees who commit crimes connected with work get reduced benefits or no benefits at all.
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