The case agent who allegedly provided false information to a Habersham County, Ga., SWAT team that maimed a toddler has been charged with federal civil rights violations.
Attorney Mawuli Davis, who represents the parents of Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, the 19-month-old who sustained severe injuries to his face and chest, along with possible brain damage, after a stun grenade deployed during the May 2014 raid landed in his playpen, confirmed the charges to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The case agent, Habersham sheriff’s deputy Nikki Autry, was previously forced to resign. The motivation for the false information was not available.
According to federal prosecutors, Autry had warned the SWAT team that executed the raid to expect armed guards, a cache of weapons and drugs in the home of a relative where the Phonesavanhs were staying. Deputies found neither guns, narcotics or the suspect, Wanis Thonetheva, who was arrested later that day without incident at another site.
Lawyers for the sheriff and the other officers denied that “false and misleading information was used in the search warrant application,” even though the case agent who supplied it was forced to resign last year.
Federal prosecutors launched their own investigation last October after a Habersham grand jury declined to bring charges against any of the officers involved.
Still, the grand jury criticized the raid, calling it “hurried and sloppy.”
“Much of the problem in this tragic situation involved information and intelligence,” the jurors wrote last October in their presentment.
In April, Habersham County Commission Chairwoman Andrea Harper announced the county had settled with the family for $964,000.
“Over the last few months the Board of County Commissioners has sought a way to bring some measure of closure to this matter while doing what is right, both for the Phonesavanh family and the law enforcement officers involved,” Harper said. “For that reason we have reached a limited settlement with the Phonesavanhs that allows for a payment to them in exchange for protection of the officers and the county.”
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