FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A Cobb County prosecutor and a Georgia State professor are coming forward in with new information that yet again calls into question the timeline of when Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor of the Georgia election RICO case Nathan Wade began their relationship.
It comes as defense attorneys seeking to disqualify Willis and Wade from prosecuting the case push for the judge to re-open the record to allow that testimony to be heard and just one day before one of the defense attorneys involved in the case is set to testify in a separate Georgia state Senate hearing.
New court filings
According to one filing, Cindi Lee Yeager, Co-Chief Deputy District Attorney for Cobb County, said Willis and Wade began dating in 2019 or around that time. Yeager also stated that Terrence Bradley, Nathan Wade's former law partner, possessed personal knowledge about their relationship before November 2021.
"Ms. Yeager watched Mr. Bradley’s testimony before the Court and became concerned as a result of the fact that what Mr. Bradley testified to on the witness stand was directly contrary to what Mr. Bradley had told Ms. Yeager in person," the filing says.
Yeager's testimony contradicts Bradley's recent statement, where he claimed he did not know when the two began dating, adding that he told her the two met and started dating around the time of the 2019 Municipal Court Continuing Legal Education Conference.
"Mr. Wade had definitively begun a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis during the time that Ms. Willis was running for District Attorney in 2019 through 2020," the filing says.
The filing also mentions that around September 2023, Bradley was visiting Yeager when he received a phone call that she claimed was Willis stating, "They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us," in response to an article that was published about how much money Mr. Wade and his law partners had been paid in this case.
A second filing, submitted on behalf of co-defendant Cathy Latham, claims that a former Georgia State law professor, Manny Arora, also had knowledge of Willis and Wade's relationship starting in 2019, citing several conversations Arora had with Terrance Bradley. Bradley served as the divorce attorney for Wade as he separated from his wife.
In both filings, attorneys said the both Yeager and Arora would be available to testify as witnesses, should judge Scott McAfee decide to reopen the record to allow them to do so. So far, however, McAfee has not signaled that he would do so, as both the State and defense delivered their closing arguments last week.
Georgia Senate Hearing
Meanwhile, a notice of the meeting's agenda from the state Senate showed that Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Michael Roman, one of the 19 co-defendants originally indicted in the case along with former President Donald Trump, would be subpoenaed to testify about the case.
This hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m., and 11Alive plans to livestream it.
All of this comes while McAfee weighs his decision on whether to disqualify Wade and Willis over the claims of an improper romantic relationship that personally benefitted Willis and included the misuse of taxpayer funds.
That decision is expected within the next two weeks.