750 jurors summoned for racketeering trial Former DeKalb school chief, 2 others first indicted in 2010.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA) – Saturday, October 5, 2013
Author: Rhonda Cook ; Staff
Around 750 summonses have been sent in hopes of finding 12 jurors and four alternates to hear the upcoming racketeering trial of former DeKalb County School Superintendent Crawford Lewis, the district’s one-time chief operating officer Pat Reid and her ex-husband Tony Pope.
On Friday, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker repeatedly pointed out to the prosecuting and defense attorneys that the case will be crowded, complicated and time-consuming so they need to work out any possible issues now.
It will be a long trial, possibly a month or more after it starts with jury selection on Oct. 28.
Read more at the AJC >> 750 jurors summoned for racketeering trial Former DeKalb school chief, 2 others first indicted in 2010.
(Please note, it’s beyond the pay wall)
dekalb school watch two 
At long last!
Bout time.
I’m glad to see us getting this thing get underway. I remain pessimistic – simply don’t think that Crawford Lewis will ever be convicted in Dekalb County Georgia regardless of the case presented by the Prosecution.
These cases, as seen all over the country, are very complicated and hard to get convictions on. This one will be no different. The interesting part is what Lewis knows about past Board member bad behavior (as well as those in the construction industry). Will he share?
A commentator on the AJC website regularly alleges that Pat Reid never attended the college(s) from which she claims to have a degree(s). I really hope the prosecutors and/or Crawford Lewis’ defense team looked into that claim. It would be relatively easy to check – just contact the colleges and ask them whether or not Reid actually was enrolled and whether or not she was granted a degree.
Lord knows the prosecutors have had plenty of time to have investigated Reid by now!
better
The truth can be tortured, trampled, and mistaken for a lie. But eventually, if we live long enough, it will be known. Amen.
I am the commenter who states that Pat Reid does not have the degree claimed. I heard an Interview that Crawford Lewis made where he stated that Pat Reid/ Pope had a Construction Engineering Degree from Purdue University in the early 1980’s. Then I saw another place where it said she went to the Calumette Campus of Purdue, up in Northern Indiana, not at the West Layfette Campus.
I graduated from Purdue University in 1983 with a Master’s degree in Construction Engineering and Management ( Civil Engineering on my Diploma). I was one of only two females in my class. I was also the First female Teaching Assistant in the Civil Engineering Department’s Construction Engineering and Management Program. You could only obtain this degree at either the Bachelors level, Masters or PHd level at the West Layfette campus. They did a few distance learning classes at a Satellite campus in Indianapolis, but you could not complete your degree there. You had to come to the main campus . I know who was in that program at the time because, I was the TA and graded all the papers. Their were no females. In the Undergraduate program at West Layfette there were only 3-4 white females per class. There were no black females in the program, as their were no black males in the program. There was only one Jewish guy in the class Moshe. There were several wealthy middle Easterners of Iranian descent as was common in Engineering school in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s.
She simply can not have a Civil Engineering Degree with a major in construction Engineering and Management from Purdue University from the early 1980’s. The degree was only offered at the main West Lafayette Campus at the time. I was there, and I also was a TA in the program, she was not in the program.
Purdue may have had an Engineering Technology program at Calumet campus. They had a Construction technology program at W. Lafayette. For those who could not hack engineering, or wanted to be a Supt. or Foreman, but it was not an Engineering degree. It was not a program for future Facilites Managers or COO or for that case even Project engineers or project managers.
I worked for the Federal Gov’t in Facilities Management for years, our engineering and Architecture Positions require a 4 yr degree from an accredited School of Engineering or Architecture. it is also required to sit on a selection panel, to avoid political corruption. Even with that we had a Black woman who claimed she was an industrial engineer from Georgia tech and submitted a falsified transcript. it was eventually caught and she was fired.
Thanks for the great information on Pope. I hope it helps the case, and it should! Thanks for the interesting information. Why am I not surprised?
From http://www.ojs.dekalbga.org
BARNES, VERNELL Witness
STRAIN, PAULETTE Witness
RIVERS, ROB Witness
JOYNER, BEBE Witness
MAYFIELD, FELICIA MITCHELL Witness
HUCKLEBERRY, PAUL Witness
GEARY, DON Witness
LEWIS, CRAWFORD Defendant
GUDE, SAM Witness
WORTHINGTON, MICHAEL Witness
BROWN, AUDRA Witness
HORTON, SANDRA Witness
BROWN, YOLANDA Witness
TURK, MARCUS Witness
CUNNINGHAM, JAY Witness
LEVETT-PHILLIPS CONFIDENTIAL BONDING, INC. Bonding Company
CRUZ, ELSIE Witness
SCHILLING, MARK Witness
BREW, JOSEPH Witness
BERRY, AUDRIA Witness
WILLIAMSON, RICK Witness
NIX, CLARENCE Witness
BOWEN, TOM Witness
SMITH, GREG Witness
LAWRENCE-HARDY, ALLEGRA Witness
MOODY, CHARLES DAVID Witness
BRANT, CHARLES T. Attorney
REED, DANNY Witness
HURST, SUSAN Witness
THOMPSON, ALICE Witness
FINCHER, JEFF Witness
DONOHUE, STEVEN Witness
UNGER, ROBERTA Witness
JEFFERSON, MELISSA Witness
COUSIN, LARON Witness
CLEMENTS, LAKISHA S. Attorney
TURK, MARCUS Witness
AXAM, TONY L. Attorney
PETREY, JOHN H Attorney
POPE, ANTHONY VINCENT Defendant
MORGAN, GREG Witness
REID, PATRICIA Defendant
REDOVIAN, JIM Witness
PROPERTY OF DOLLISON Bonding Company
PROPERTY OF DOLLISON Bonding Company
MORGAN, JOHN THOMAS Attorney
DUNCAN, BOB Witness
TYSON, RAMONA Witness
ANDERSON, PETER Witness
SNAPP, GREG Witness
MOODY, CHARLES DAVID Witness
FREEMAN, TIM Witness
GUDE, LYNN Witness
WILDMAN, WILLIAM Witness
JACKSON, LYNN Witness
COST, RICK Witness
TAYLOR, BERNARD Attorney
HAMMEL, LARRY Witness
DEKALB BONDING SPECIALIST LLC Bonding Company
GUILLORY, DAVID Witness
SCHILLING, MARK Witness
HAWKINS, STAN Witness
BUTLER, DAVE Witness
QUEEN, ART Witness
MANN, AMY SUE Witness
WALKER, GENE Witness
TYLER, WAYNE Witness
ALEXANDER, JOSIE Witness
ANTHONY, ART Witness
RAMSEY, RONALD Witness
BROWN, MICHAEL L. Attorney
MARKO, EDWARD Witness
ARORA, MANUBIR S Attorney
GRANT, LYNN CHERRY Witness
BOLES, TIMOTHY Witness
FRAGALA, DAVID Witness
LITTLEJOHN, CASSANDRA A. Witness
SCAFFE, DAVID Witness
COLMAN, BARBARA Witness
JONES, PHYLLIS Witness
BERNSTEIN, BRENDA JOY Attorney
FREE AT LAST BAIL BONDS Bonding Company
LEWIS, HAROLD Witness
FARMER, BYRON Witness
ROY, PHIL Witness
ADAMS, ANGELA Attorney
EVANS, DANNY Witness
KEYES-FLEMING, GWENDOLYN Witness
HOGAN, PAUL Witness
THOMAS, BORQUAYE A Attorney
RAMSEY, RONALD Witness
COPELAND, DAN Witness
@Another Comment – Thank you! It seems to me that if Pat Pope did lie on her resume, that could open up a new can of worms for her as well as for the DCSS administration that hired her. I remember well of requesting the colleges where I obtained both my undergraduate and graduate degrees to provide the school where I was teaching with sealed, certified letters verifying that my credentials were as I had reported. That was a condition of employment.
Pope may or may not have lied on her resume, but it’s been shown that she lied on her job application as well as she and Lewis lied to the Board.
Lewis told the Board that he had found the perfect candidate through a national search (he paid a search firm – which should also be checked out) but on Pat Pope’s application, in which she uses her maiden name Reid, she states that in her past employment she was VP of Pope Architects and also a consultant to DCSS SPLOST. So she had already been working for DCSS long before she and Lewis cooked up the idea to kick out Pritchett (who got poor reviews on the previous SPLOST audit) and replace him with Pat.
Read the snippets of testimony posted on the subject at the old DSW blog: http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2010/03/some-testimony-for-your-reading.html
For a little more history, here’ the link to the article referenced in the old DSW post:
Huge DeKalb schools project altered, aiding spouse
Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010
It’s a must-read if you are not up to speed on the case.
Here’s the nutshell:
The revelation about Pat Pope’s actions in this project is the latest in a series of AJC articles about the official and her involvement in the construction projects under investigation.
Pope, who headed the school district’s construction program until the criminal probe intensified last fall, solicited bids in fall 2007 for work on the massive Mountain Industrial Center complex, records show.
At the time, Tony Pope had teamed up with a construction company to compete for the job of renovating the complex, which includes two schools and other facilities near Tucker.
But that company decided not to pursue the project, leaving Tony Pope without a business partner to bid on the work.
Had Pat Pope moved forward with the project as it was, it would have gone to one of the other contractor-architect teams in the running.
Instead, she broke the project in two and the district gave a fraction of it to one of the original bidders, without advertising the changes. The much larger portion of the work was put out to bid a month later.
By that time, Tony Pope had teamed up with Nix-Fowler Constructors. That company won the contract, which now stands at $21.3 million, through a competitive bid process. Tony Pope’s portion so far is $1,075,718, according to financial documents obtained from Nix-Fowler.
Hand? Cookie Jar? This trial says that “Responsibility” isn’t just a six figure income, staff and a free car. ‘Responsibility’ means one pays the full consequences of your own corruption and theft… What do you bet the testimony leads to another round of indictments and criminal trials?