The Atlanta schools cheating case is now in the hands of three local district attorneys, who must decide whether the scandal is also criminal.
District attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties said they are reviewing the voluminous report by state investigators and will decide whether to seek indictments.
Douglas County DA David McDade said Friday he expects it will take prosecutors a considerable amount of time to reach decisions. He noted that the GBI’s investigative file in the case amasses 120 volumes.
As prosecutors consider their options, scores of current and former APS educators and administrators, some at the highest levels of the system, are left wondering whether police officers will knock on their doors.
“I’m sure there are a lot of people who have great concern right now,” said Ron Carlson, a University of Georgia criminal law professor. “Some of the allegations in this report are gravely serious.”
Among the potential charges: giving false statements to investigators or altering public documents, which are felonies with penalties of up to 10 years in prison. School officials who submitted test scores they knew to be false also face possible felony charges and up to five years in prison.
Anyone who destroyed documents or instructed subordinates not to cooperate could be charged with obstruction of justice, a misdemeanor.
The report says 178 educators, including 38 principals, participated in cheating on standardized tests. It also accuses top administrators of destroying or altering complaints about misconduct and trying to hinder the investigation.
When former Gov. Sonny Perdue launched the probe last August, he stressed that teachers who cheated but were honest with investigators should not be criminally prosecuted. Gov. Nathan Deal restated that directive after he took office, the report says.
The report says investigators obtained confessions from 82 educators. Some of the remaining 96 refused to answer questions, asserting their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Others lied, the report alleges
In some sections, the investigative report reads like a criminal indictment. Some administrators “aided and abetted” cheating, it says. It also notes that educators, at the behest of investigators, wore hidden recording devices and recorded phone calls with others suspected of wrongdoing.
J. Tom Morgan, a former district attorney, said he has never seen an executive agency issue a report like the one released to the public in the APS case that names individuals and accuses them of crimes without having first been approved by a grand jury.
“It puts the DAs in an awkward position,” he said, noting the local prosecutors did not oversee the investigation and must now deal with immunity agreements granted to witnesses that they did not approve.
Morgan, who represented APS, said he was not speaking on behalf of the system.
Already, some implicated in the investigation have criticized the report’s findings. Former Superintendent Beverly Hall said through her lawyer that no evidence shows she knew widespread cheating occurred. The report says Hall knew or should have known cheating was widespread in the district.
Three teachers from Finch Elementary also denounced the report’s assertion that they changed test answers.
“We are shocked and enraged that the system and politicians are trying to make the teachers scapegoats for a systemic problem that has pervaded [APS] for years,” teachers Sharona Thomas-Wilson, Tyrone Shorter and Joya Florence said in a statement. “We cannot sit back and be slandered in reports when we did nothing wrong. We will fight to clear our names.”
Atlanta defense attorney Bruce Harvey, who represents six APS educators, criticized investigators for disclosing the names of those who exercised their Fifth Amendment rights. “That’s the touchstone of a witch hunt, not an investigation,” Harvey said.
Former Venetian Hills Elementary principal Clarietta Davis was one of six principals who declined to answer questions. The report said Davis cheated and directed others to cheat on tests from 2004 to 2009.
The report lists 20 questions Davis refused to answer, such as whether she pressured teachers to cheat and whether she received bonus money from APS based on test scores she knew were false. Davis “categorically denies” wrongdoing, Harvey, her attorney, said.
The report notes that an educator’s refusal to answer questions is an implied admission in a civil proceeding, such as when the state Professional Standards Commission decides whether to suspend or revoke an educator’s license. It cannot, however, be used to imply guilt in a criminal case.
Of the three DAs, Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard has, by far, the most to consider. The investigative report — compiled by former state Attorney General Mike Bowers, former DeKalb DA Bob Wilson and investigator Richard Hyde — alleges cheating in 40 schools in Fulton and misconduct at APS headquarters.
In November, Howard designated Bowers and Wilson as special assistant DAs. On Tuesday, hours after they stood next to Deal at the governor’s news conference on the report, Bowers and Wilson briefed Howard on their findings.
Howard said a member of his senior staff is now reviewing the case, and once that is completed, “we will make an announcement at that time.”
McDade, the Douglas County DA, said he has reviewed the report, which alleges four teachers at Gideons Elementary took students’ answer sheets to a teacher’s Douglasville home. Over a weekend, the teachers allegedly held a “changing party” to correct wrong answers.
The special investigators granted immunity to the Gideons teachers in exchange for their testimony, so they cannot be prosecuted, McDade said Friday. “So our focus is on the administrators or supervisors of those teachers.”
Cheating also occurred in at least four APS schools — East Lake Elementary, Whitefoord Elementary, Coan Middle and Toomer Elementary — in DeKalb, the report said.
In 2009, the DeKalb DA’s office obtained a conviction against former principal James Berry of DeKalb’s Atherton Elementary School for falsifying a state document in a test-cheating case. He received two years on probation and was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.
Prosecutors decided not to indict assistant principal Doretha Alexander, who was also implicated, after she agreed to serve 40 hours of community service at a food bank. They no longer work for the school system.
Atlanta lawyer Don Samuel, who represented Alexander, said APS employees facing possible criminal charges should consider damage control if they think there is considerable evidence against them. This includes agreeing to cooperate or cutting a deal.
“Losing their license is one thing,” he said. “Facing a criminal prosecution is quite another.”
Staff writer Alan Judd contributed to this article.
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