ATLANTA — A judge in DeKalb County on Friday granted bond to three people arrested this week who are charged with financial crimes for their alleged activity with a fund that supports the protest movement against the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
Weighing the case against bond being made by prosecutors and the details of the charges so far put forth against the three people, the judge said: "I don't find it very impressive."
11Alive reported Thursday on the warrants for the three who operate the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a group that has raised bail money and done other legal advocacy and fundraising going back to the 2020 racial justice protest movements and 2016 counterprotests against white supremacists in Stone Mountain.
They largely detailed allegations that money had been misappropriated into private accounts for small-money reimbursements to support the protest movement for items such as camping supplies, yard signs and phone plans.
In one instance, the authorities allege a $48,000 transfer to another charity and then back that the warrants characterize as "appearing to launder the funds."
In granting bond, the judge said of the case at this point, "There's not a lot of meat on the bones," while granting the case could later appear more serious.
The three people arrested include a 30-year-old from Savannah, 39-year old from Atlanta and 42-year-old from Atlanta.
Prosecutors had tried to make the case that they've used the Atlanta Solidarity Fund as way to do noble, public facing acts - paying for bonds, feeding the hungry - while radicalizing people behind the scenes. Prosecutors cited diaries of one individual obtained out of the trash and allegedly finding "instruction manuals" during the arrests this week for illegal and violent acts.
Prosecutor John Fowler, representing the Georgia Attorney General's Office, framed the charity fraud case as about "money taken, and supposed to be used for good, that was not used for good - used to attack police, to do all this sort of stuff."
Don Samuel, the attorney for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund defendants, rejected those arguments, focusing in on the specific allegations within the warrants rather than the broader allegations against the "Stop Cop City" protest movement.
"My real concern here is if you look at these warrants... of what they've done with the money that prompts both the money laundering and the charitable fraud, I mean, $37.11 to build yard signs - what could be more First Amendment activity than getting materials to build yard signs?" Samuel said.
As part of the conditions for bond, the judge appeared to grant that their fundraising activities would closely be contained to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund itself and not a subsidiary the prosecution claimed was primarily funneling money to aid the more radical elements of the protest movement.
They are also not to leave the state, though the judge appeared to make an exception for one of the defendants to visit a parent about to have surgery.
More about the training center and its opposition
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund has called the charges "an attempt to cut off protestors from legal aid."
The Atlanta Community Press Collective shared a statement from the fund Wednesday saying: "ASF understands that with social resistance comes government repression. We remain committed to supporting anyone who is targeted, and challenging the violence and overreach tactics from the Atlanta PD and DeKalb and Fulton County legal system."
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said the arrests were "about violence that occurred at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and elsewhere" and Gov. Brian Kemp said, "those who backed their (the protest groups') illegal actions are also under arrest and will face justice."
The warrants allege the financial activity goes to "fund actions in part of Defend the Atlanta Forest (DTAF), a group classified by the United States Department of Homeland Security as Domestic Violent Extremists," and that the accused "affirmed their cooperation with DTAF by providing material support in the form of payments, reimbursements to DTAF members through NFSC."
Protest groups have strongly disputed the "domestic violent extremist" characterization of their activities; authorities have arrested more than two dozen people associated with the protest movement over the last few months and charged them with domestic terrorism.
The warrants allege the tag is based on "acts... stating their intent was to intimidate employees of the government and private companies into not accepting or completing tasks in and around the site of the Atlanta Police Training Center."
The acts "have included vandalism at offices and private residences; throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, and fireworks at uniformed police officers; arson of public buildings, heavy equipment, private buildings and private vehicles; shooting metal ball bearings at contractors; discharging firearms at critical infrastructure; preventing access to private land; and several other violations of law," the warrant went on to say.
The Defend the Forest protest collective called the arrests an "attack" that "should concern all bail funds, all abortion funds, all travel funds for migrants, watchdog groups, all organized material support for people criminalized by the government."
On Wednesday evening, a "Stop Cop City" rally was held outside of the DeKalb County Jail for the three protesters who were taken into custody. Signs such as "Mayor Dickens: Stop Cop City" and "Stop Cop City" were held up by those there in protest of the public safety training site.
Opponents of the future training center refer to it as "Cop City."
"Three members of the Solidarity Fund were arrested by the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation," organizer Kamau Franklin said. "The charges are false charges -- charges which are based on the criminalization of a movement against Cop City."
The arrests came ahead of a much-anticipated meeting of the Atlanta City Council on Monday that could see the final approval for the city's portion of the funding of the training center, which opponents call "Cop City."
The meeting will represent one of the last official hurdles for the project, which has cleared regulatory steps and legal challenges in DeKalb County.
While the Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the Atlanta Police Department, is majority-funding the project through private donations, 11Alive reported in April that by the end of June the city has to write the police foundation a check for about half of an initial $33.5 million the city has agreed to provide -- that is, once the City Council approves the payment.
According to reporting last week by the Atlanta Community Press Collective, another, previously unreported provision of the funding agreement could mean the city is on the hook for another roughly $20 million.
It remains unclear if, at Monday's meeting, that other provision will be addressed by the council.
The construction of the facility is tentatively set to start in August on a portion of land in the South River Forest.
The protest movement began with semi-permanent treehouse encampments in the forest in December 2021, and mushroomed after the law enforcement shooting death of a protester, Manuel Paez Teran, in January this year.
Officials have said Teran first shot at a Georgia State Patrol trooper as a clearing operation of the encampments was ongoing, then was killed in return fire. Teran's family and activists have strongly contested the official narrative. The lack of bodycam videos - which are not worn by state law enforcement officers such as GSP troopers or GBI agents - has left unresolved what exactly happened.
Several activists in the last few months have been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism after property was damaged at the development site.
The plan is to build the facility on land - the old Atlanta Prison Farm complex - owned by the City of Atlanta and being leased to the Atlanta Police Foundation.
The protesters have opposed the facility on environmental and historical grounds, saying it would decimate one of the largest preserved forest areas in the city and desecrate historically Native American land of the Muscogee Creek people, who once lived in the woods and called it the Weelaunee Forest before being displaced by white settlers in the early 19th Century.
The project's backers - including the law enforcement community, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond - have argued it would improve training and community ties, framing it as an answer to police reform demands to eliminate contentious policing practices and reduce tensions between the police department and the public.