Fresh Loaf

Due to technical difficulties, I wasn’t able to take part in last night’s live blog, so I’ll recap some of observations from the Democratic bacchanal at the downtown Hyatt. As I arrived, the Rev. Joe Lowery was onstage offering encouragement to an excited crowd in a downstairs ballroom. I was told Senate candidate Jim Martin had stopped by a little earlier and that I’d just missed Mayor Shirley Franklin. I was surprised Shirley had left before the election was called, but her son, Cabral, told me she was helping babysit his kids. I guess after a hard day as mayor, it’s nice to go home and just be grandma.

However, I did see state Attorney General Thurbert Baker; DeKalb CEO-elect Burrell Ellis; Atlanta Councilman Kwanza Hall; Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves; and state Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown, D-Macon. In an unexpected sighting, former Fulton Commissioner Michael Hightower — who spent some time behind bars a few years back for taking bribes from a developer — was making the rounds and shaking hands. A relieved-looking U.S. Rep David Scott, fresh from re-election, came in just after the presidential race had been called for Obama, as the DJ played “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”

A little later, I found myself sipping scotch in the Obama suite while watching McCain’s concession speech next to former Congressman Buddy Darden. Also there were state Sen. David Adelman, D-Atlanta, who chaired Obama’s Georgia campaign, and fellow Sen. Doug Stoner, D-Smyrna. Both had cruised to election earlier in the day.

Back downstairs, a giant conga line had formed as ecstatic Democrats celebrated the historic victory. Hanging at the back of the ballroom, just watching the revelry, was Clayton County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell, looking dapper as always. Leave it to Eldrin to find the happenin’ party.

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The state Attorney General’s Office filed suit today against Atlanta Councilman H. Lamar Willis, alleging that he sought and received donations for a scholarship fund in his name without first creating a nonprofit. State law mandates that charitable organizations must be registered with the Georgia Secretary of State before soliciting contributions.

The lawsuit also alleges that Willis failed to seek nonprofit-status with the IRS, according to a press release from the AG’s office:

[T]he fund, known as the H. Lamar Willis Scholarship Foundation, held itself out to the public and to donors as a charitable organization, and the foundation’s website maintained that donations to the foundation were tax-deductible because the foundation had been approved by the IRS as a charitable organization.  The suit alleges that Willis never obtained IRS approval for his foundation as a charitable organization.

According to the press release, the lawsuit claims that Willis “transferred funds from the foundation’s account to both his personal as well as his campaign account.  The lawsuit also alleges that Willis made cash withdrawals from the foundation account.”

The state is seeking an injunction that would prevent Willis from continuing to operate the foundation, and to turn over all donations the foundation has received.

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As if we didn’t have our hands full already — you know, there’s that whole water-sharing dilemma, as well as the potential for a border dispute with Tennessee — it’d make for great theater if Georgia decided to take a stab at the water, land and air trifecta and sue the Environmental Protection Agency for its recent tightening of the air quality standard.

This morning I received an e-mail that included a message purportedly from the National Association of Attorneys General and addressed to members of the organization. It stated that Mississippi’s attorney general was eying a possible law suit against the EPA for its recent tightening of air quality standards. The message from NAAG asked its members if any other states — including Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, South Carolina and Indiana — were considering similar action. A spokesperson for NAAG said the association often communicates internally with its members and could not comment on the authenticity of the e-mail.

Earlier this year, Gov. Sonny Perdue was one of 12 governors who urged the EPA to not enact a stricter air quality standard prior to the agency’s ruling last month. State Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon, pushed a resolution earlier this legislative session that would have urged the EPA not to tighten that standard.

As of right now, however, there are no plans for Georgia to take such litigious action. Russ Willard of state Attorney General Thurbert Baker’s office said in a phone interview their office was contacted by Mississippi this morning, but that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which has authority over such actions, has not expressed a desire to pursue a lawsuit against the federal agency.

“Neither the Governor or EPD have expressed the desire to [join or file a lawsuit],” Willard says.

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Georgia’s infamous inmate of the moment, teen sex offender Genarlow Wilson, could soon be heading home to Douglas County, say some local legal eagles.

That prediction is based on the fact that the Georgia Supreme Court recently took the unusual move of reversing its own June decision not to hear an appeal of Wilson’s denial of bond. As originally scheduled, the high court wouldn’t have heard Wilson’s case until October, meaning he would likely have spent the rest of the year in prison. Instead, the justices will hear oral arguments this Friday at 10 a.m.

To some court watchers, that can likely mean one thing: Wilson should pack his bags.
“My guess is, the justices would not have granted the expedited appeal unless they were interested in finding the legal means to correct an injustice,” says J. Tom Morgan, former district attorney for DeKalb County.

That injustice, of course, is that Wilson remains in prison months after the law that put him there was repealed. In June, a Monroe County judge tossed out Wilson’s 10-year sentence for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. But a Douglas judge ordered that Wilson should stay behind bars while state Attorney General Thurbert Baker appealed the first judge’s ruling.
Initially, the Georgia Supremes saw no reason to fast-track a hearing for Wilson’s bond appeal. Then they changed their minds. Could it have been the fact that the Peach State has become, once again, the laughingstock of the nation?

“The justices are as cognizant as the rest of us that this case is an embarrassment to the state,” Morgan says.

Morgan also suggests that Douglas District Attorney David McDade should have known better than to hand out videotapes showing Wilson taking part in the sex acts that landed him in prison. Although McDade claims he was only following the state’s open-records laws, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias says the prosecutor may have violated federal child-pornography laws.

Notes Morgan: “The law makes clear the exemptions (to kiddie-porn statutes), and giving tapes to legislators so they won’t change a law isn’t one of them.”

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Genarlow Wilson

[I]f it had been my daughter, he wouldn’t have made it to jail. Bigger problems would have awaited other than the judge and jury. But almost certainly the girls didn’t have fathers at home to guide them in their teen years. Another casualty of the welfare system.

— Posted on the JasonPye.com blog by District 17 Sen. John Douglas concerning the Genarlow Wilson case after a judge overturned Wilson’s 10-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17

She did not want any of this to happen … she was friends with all of them.

— Veda Cannon to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on her daughter’s reaction to the judge’s decision

As Attorney General, it is my responsibility to follow the laws of Georgia as they are written, not how some may wish they were written.

— Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, on his decision to appeal the judge’s decision to overturn the sentence and free Wilson

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Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker announced today that MySpace has agreed to hand over information the social networking site obtained while trying to rid its massive membership of registered sex offenders.

But while MySpace officials have claimed its efforts to purge the pervs has been successful, there’s evidence to suggest otherwise.

Baker, president of the National Association of Attorneys General, along with a half-dozen other attorneys general had urged MySpace in a letter last week to share the info so law enforcement could check to see whether sex offenders had violated their parole by contacting minors online.

In a press release, Baker proclaimed:

Today’s decision by MySpace clears the way for law enforcement, both here in Georgia and around the nation, to target internet predators who use the appeal of social networking sites to search for potential victims.

The release points out that MySpace had hired an outside data firm to compare a list of MySpace members with lists of sex-offender registries maintained by different states, and it goes on to claim that “MySpace has deleted these users from its site.”

Yet Wired magazine has been keeping MySpace on its toes with an admittedly “unscientific” 2006 probe of its own — and an equally interesting follow-up posted on the magazine’s blog last week — that suggests not all sex offenders are being deleted.

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