More DeKalb school board candidates have arrest records

A candidate for DeKalb County school board was arrested three times, including domestic violence charges, and the board’s vice chairwoman was once charged with trespassing. In all of the cases, the charges were dropped.

Records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday show District 3 candidate Corey Wilson was accused of kicking his wife and putting her in a headlock in 2006. However, she later decided to not prosecute.

Wilson and his wife both referred comments to campaign spokesman Will Sellers.

“It was an argument over a financial matter. There was no physical contact,” Sellers told the AJC. “His mother had just passed away and emotions were running high. But the important thing is he was not convicted and there was no violence.”

However, courts records show Okevia Wilson's teenage daughter witnessed Corey Wilson's attack. Corey Wilson was charged with two counts of simple battery and two counts of violating the state’s family violence act, all misdemeanors.

Okevia Wilson’s daughter called police after she awoke to the sounds of a fight, she told police.She came downstairs and saw Corey Wilson holding her mother in a headlock and kicking her, according to a police report.

The couple told police the dispute started over a ticket to a football game. It ended with Corey Wilson going to jail.

Corey Wilson was scheduled for trial a year later, but his wife signed an affidavit saying she did not want to prosecute. The solicitor's office dropped the charges, but a judge still ordered Corey Wilson to attend a domestic violence intervention program.

Sellers said Okevia Wilson was not injured and the couple is still married.

Wilson's first arrest came in 1992 when, as a college student, he was taken into custody at a house party in Stone Mountain and charged with disorderly conduct. His spokesman said officers were questioning the students about a loud party when Wilson made some incendiary remarks that led to his arrest. Those charges were later dropped, Sellers said.

A year later, Wilson returned to the DeKalb jail on assault charges after a fist fight with his brother. The dispute arose over Wilson’s suspicions that the brother’s friend had broken into their mother’s house, Sellers said. Again, no charges were filed.

Wilson, 40, serves as PTA president at Oak View Elementary, where the couple’s two children attend. Wilson, a manager at CarMax, has been endorsed by the county’s largest teachers’ union, the Organization of DeKalb Educators, and the Chamber of Commerce group eduKalb.

Wilson was not required to disclose his arrests to qualify for election. He did not list his arrests on a candidate questionnaire with eduKalb, a spokeswoman said.

Board vice chairwoman Zepora Roberts, who is running for re-election in District 7 and was not endorsed, also did not list her time in jail.

Roberts said she was picketing a store on North Druid Hills with the NAACP in 1986 when she and several other members were arrested.

Roberts was booked into the DeKalb jail on one misdemeanor count of criminal trespass, but was released several hours later. A judge later dismissed the charges a few months later.

“It was during apartheid and they were selling products from South Africa and the NAACP took them on,” Roberts, 66, told the AJC. “And we were arrested for picketing.”