Kelly Marlow, a polarizing figure on the Cherokee County school board, was suspended from office after a jury found her guilty Saturday of lying to police.
Marlow and two associates had accused Superintendent Frank Petruzielo of trying to hit them with his vehicle.
Because the crime is a felony, Marlow was immediately suspended from the school board, school district spokeswoman Barbara Jacoby said in a statement Monday. She said Marlow cannot be removed from office until after an appeals process. While suspended, though, Marlow will not collect pay and is barred from acting in the capacity of a board member. She will have no role in upcoming graduation ceremonies.
Prosecutors accused Marlow and two associates — political adviser Robert John Trim and Cherokee County Republican Party Secretary Barbara Knowles — of fabricating an allegation that Petruzielo tried to run them down after a contentious late-night school board meeting on June 13.
During the meeting, Marlow and Petruzielo engaged in heated exchanges over the board’s budget and procedures. Afterward, Marlow and the other two told police they were crossing the street in front of the Painted Pig Tavern in Canton when the superintendent’s white BMW swerved toward them, coming so close that Trim had to shove Marlow out of the way. The trio were arrested in July and charged with making multiple false statements to police.
It’s the second time formal accusations brought by Marlow have been found untrue. Last year, she sent a complaint to accreditation agency AdvancED, alleging the district had broken open-meeting laws and board policies. AdvancED subsidiary the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools investigated and cleared the school system.
The Cherokee school board then fined Marlow $3,600, maintaining she violated local ethics policy by acting alone rather than with the board as a whole in soliciting SACS to investigate her complaint. She appealed the decision, but in early April the Georgia Board of Education sustained the sanction.
Marlow, who won election by a margin of 24 votes in 2012, was popular among tea party activists, an important voting bloc that tends to support Republican candidates. She became an incendiary figure in school politics in largely Republican Cherokee.
Parents such as Theresa Brader have grown weary of the distraction. “She seemed to have her own agenda, but I don’t think anybody knew what it was because it wasn’t to better the system or the education of our children,” said Brader, who has three children in Cherokee schools. “If she’s not involved in my children’s education, I’m perfectly happy with that.”
Jacoby, the system spokeswoman, said the school board attorney was still determining Monday what the law says about temporarily filling Marlow’s seat during her suspension. If she resigned, Jacoby noted, a special election would be called to fill the remainder of her term, which runs through 2016.
Marlow was tentatively scheduled to be sentenced in Cherokee Superior Court on Thursday, and could face time in prison. The crime of making a false statement can be punished by up to five years and a fine up to $1,000. She was convicted on two counts. Her attorney, Brian Steel, said Marlow will “absolutely appeal” the conviction.
Petruzielo said in a prepared statement that the convictions brought him “no joy” but did bring “great relief.” He contended that the “clear intent was to do irreparable damage to me, my family and my professional reputation.”
He said the school system “can now return our full focus to the extraordinary success of our schools and our students.”
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