A Clayton County judge dismissed bathroom eavesdropping charges that had been filed against a Clayton sheriff’s deputy.
For now, at least, Alicia Parkes is free of allegations she video-recorded a fellow Sheriff’s Office employee in a women’s restroom stall last year.
Parkes declined to comment Wednesday outside a Clayton courtroom, but her attorney, Jackie Patterson, said the decision was a victory.
“The judge agreed with us that the indictment was not perfect,” Patterson said. “My client still works for the sheriff’s department. If she committed a crime, she would not be working for the sheriff’s department.”
Assistant District Attorney Lalaine Briones disagreed.
“I think a violation of the law occurred, and someone’s privacy was invaded,” Briones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sometime between June 15 and July 4, 2010, Parkes allegedly recorded a video of a woman in the public restroom of the Sheriff’s Office.
Clayton Superior Court Judge Deborah Benefield pointed out in her motion to dismiss the case that it was unclear when Parkes showed the video to a woman who testified as a witness in the trial.
“She averred that it had to have occurred ‘sometime in June,’ and the video could not have been recorded in July,” Benefield said.
Then, the judge referred to statements from the alleged victim and a district attorney’s investigator that contradicted the witness. Both said the incident happened in August.
“In this case, the State does not even appear to be in the correct month of the alleged occurrence, and some of the dates alleged as the date of the occurrence appear to have been excluded by the evidence,” Benefield concluded.
Parkes still faces a 2008 obstruction charge from when she worked as a Clayton County Police Department officer. She was accused of jumping on another police officer’s back to prevent him from arresting a reported runaway who was related to her.
"That never happened," Parkes told Channel 2 Action News in a March interview.
Patterson said he is prepared to defend Parkes in the obstruction case, but prosecutors wanted to tackle the eavesdropping charges first.
Briones said prosecutors intend to re-indict the case.
“We will interview our witnesses and narrow the dates even further, and try to schedule to go back before a grand jury,” she said.
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