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 t
he construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”
Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments und
er Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal rack
eteering 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 who had fatally shot a protester. Each defenda
nt 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 local dis
trict 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.”
Case Not Over Yet
Five of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson connected
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to a 2023 “night of rage” in which masked activists burned a police car in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks a
t a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. 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 whether 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 terrorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property,” she said.
Defense attorney Don Samuel said the case was rife with errors. Defense attorneys had expected to spend the whole week going through dozens of dismissal motion
s that had been filed. During an impassioned speech on Monday, the first day of the hearing, Samuel called the case
“an assault on the right of people to protest” and urged Farmer to “put a stop to this.”
“We could have spun the wheel and seen which argument was going to win first,” Samuel told The Associated Press after Farmer announced his decision from the bench.
The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist, known as “Tortuguita,” w
ho authorities said had fired at them while inside a tent near the construction site. A prosecutor found the troopers’ actions ” objectively reasonable,” though Tortu
guita’s family has filed a lawsuit, saying the 26-year-old’s hands were in the air and that troopers used excessive force when they initially fired pepper balls into the tent.