The bizarre dispute in Austell is simply one between a mechanic and a customer: Mechanic does $1,600 worth of work on a Volkswagen and says the customer won’t pay up; customer says the mechanic did the work without his OK and is now holding the car hostage.
It sounds simple, but it’s not. At this point, the saga involves the Austell cops, the city’s mayor, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a Cobb magistrate, the district attorney and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. And it’s made the TV news.
The customer, James Quarterman, claims that the mayor, Joe Jerkins, called off the cops, who were at the shop, trying to get the mechanic to give him back the car. That the mayor is the mechanic’s cousin is not lost on Quarterman, who now wants the mayor arrested on obstruction of justice charges.
Quarterman, who is black, also called in Martin Luther King Jr.’s old organization, the SCLC, to argue on his behalf in front of the TV cameras. That added the uncomfortable wrinkle of race to this episode in a part of metro Atlanta that has gone from majority-white to majority-black during the mayor’s 25 years in office.
“I don’t know many citizens who can call on the mayor and have him directly rescue them on the scene,” said Ben Williams, president of the Cobb County Southern Christian Leadership Council. “It appears much is not right in the city of Austell.”
The diminutive Jerkins is certainly a fellow to be reckoned with. A life-sized statue of him in a crew-neck sweater gazes across the railroad tracks at City Hall, which is bordered by Joe Jerkins Blvd.
Reached at his office in a 240,000-square-foot thread mill he had renovated into city-owned office spaces, Jerkins is cordial, if a bit defensive. He’s also supremely confident, as one would expect from a self-made millionaire who has not had a political opponent since the last millennium.
“It’s under investigation so, I can’t say more,” he said when asked about Quarterman’s assertions. He quickly added: “But you’ll find out that that’s not true. I assure you I didn’t do anything wrong.”
That was Monday, after Quarterman, who has run unsucessfuly for political office in neighboring Douglas County and was once jailed in contempt of court while fighting a sales tax effort, told his side to the media.
With TV microphones pointed his way, he stood outside City Hall and, between the rumble of passing freight trains, explained that the whole thing started when he brought his daughter’s car to an Austell shop run by Steve Langley. Quarterman said that when he learned the size of the bill, he offered to pay Langley $500 for the work, which he said he had not approved, and would pay the rest later.
Langley, confronted later Monday at his shop by two TV cameras and four reporters, said Quarterman did approve the work. “I told him, ‘I just want my money,’” Langley said, looking somewhat bemused.
Quaterman went to the police complaining of the situation. The detective, he said, told him the mechanic couldn’t hold his car and directed a patrol officer to accompany him back to the shop. Langley refused to release the car. The officer called the sergeant, who came and then, in turn, called the deputy chief.
The deputy chief, Quarterman said, told the mechanic there was no written agreement, so the shop couldn’t hold onto the car.
Said Langley, the mechanic: “The police came here and said ‘You have to give him his car,’ and I said, ‘That’s wrong,’ and she said, ‘You’re going to jail for not giving him his car.’
“She called for backup. When the third car pulled up, I said, ‘The chief needs to come.’”
Then he did one better, he called his cousin, the mayor.
Quarterman said Jerkins arrived and turned to him, asking, “When you gonna pay the man?”
Soon, he said, the police shifted their stance, saying the dispute needed to be resolved in a civil suit.
(Side note: I called Richard Witterman, a business contract lawyer with no dog in this fight. He said repair shop owners have a right to “assert a mechanic’s lien” and hold a car, but they also should have some record authorizing the work. He said a consumer can swear out an arrest warrant for theft by conversion, but if the mechanic is found not guilty, then the accuser can get tagged for malicious prosecution.)
Both Langley and Jerkins told me the mayor did not interject himself into the dispute.
Jerkins said heading over to the repair shop was just another day at the office. “Everything that goes on here, I’m involved. I’m involved with every department,” said the mayor, who for $30,000 a year acts as both mayor and city manager to save money. “There was a fire the other night at 11 o’clock and I stayed out to three in the morning.”
Quarterman wasn’t having any. He went to the magistrate to swear out an arrest warrant on the mayor for obstructing justice. Then he went to the Cobb district attorney when he couldn’t get one. The DA’s office said it has the complaint and is investigating.
The city is not releasing the police report, even though it’s a public record. Their argument that the matter is “still being investigated” is twisting the state’s Open Records Act.
But the mayor’s presence anywhere in the city looms even larger than his bronze statue, which stands on a pedestal.
In the early 1990s, Jerkins ran off most of the 12-man police force (among his accusations, some were doing doughnuts on the local American Legion baseball field). He accused some cops of malingering and urged them to write more tickets. Later, a cop accused him of fixing tickets, so Jerkins asked for an investigation and was cleared.
“There weren’t but two officers left when I got through with it,” Jerkins said. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
I called him again yesterday to see if he had anything more to say after the anticipated interview with the DA’s office. No, they’re turning it over to the GBI, he said. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
The GBI says it will meet with the DA’s office next week to see where to go.
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