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Tim Lee’s newsletter lifts text from Marietta newspaper

Second instance of plagiarism this year
The office of Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee is dealing with a second instance of plagiarism since late August. The first involved use of content from a Kentucky newspaper; the latest involves paragraphs taken without attribution from the Marietta Daily Journal.

Credit: HANDOUT

Credit: HANDOUT

The office of Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee is dealing with a second instance of plagiarism since late August. The first involved use of content from a Kentucky newspaper; the latest involves paragraphs taken without attribution from the Marietta Daily Journal.
By
Sept 18, 2015

Kellie Brownlow, a $105,000-a-year chief deputy in Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee's office, lifted two paragraphs from an article in the Marietta Daily Journal without attribution in a March newsletter. It's the second known instance of plagiarism in Lee's office this year.

The plagiarism in the newsletter was brought to light in a complaint by MDJ editor Jon Gillooly.

"Why are passages from (MDJ) articles being lifted and used in the chairman's newsletter without attribution?" Gillooly wrote to Robert Quigley, who was the county's communications director at the time. "This is plagiarism."

Quigley responded that the information came directly from the chairman’s office and his staff wasn’t involved: “Kellie will be contacting you soon, if she hasn’t already.”

ExploreRead more at myAJC.com, including the email the MDJ sent to the county

About the Author

Dan Klepal is editor of the local government team, supervising nine reporters covering county and municipal governments and metro Atlanta. Klepal came to the AJC in 2012, after a long career covering city halls in Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky. He has covered Gwinnett and Cobb counties before spending three years on the investigative team.

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