ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants
accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejor
atively call “Cop City.”
Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Rep
ublican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or
RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history.
The defendants faced a wide variety of allegations — everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, to supplying food to protesters who
were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper wh
o had fatally shot a protester. Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison on the RICO charges.
Farmer said during a hearing that Carr needed Gov. Brian Kemp’s permission to pursue the case instead of the lo
cal district attorney. Prosecutors earlier conceded that they did not obtain any such order.
“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,'” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.”
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Case Not Over Yet
Five of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson connected to
a 2023 “night of rage” in which masked activists burned a police car in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks at a
skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundatio
n. Farmer said Carr also didn’t have the authority to pursue the arson charge, though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand.
Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure wheth
er he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge proceed.
Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Farmer that he believes the judge’s decision is “wholly incorrect.”
Carr plans to “appeal immediately,” spokesperson Kara Murray said.
“The Attorney General will continue the fight against domestic t
errorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property,” she said.