Atlanta, Georgia Criminal Attorneys

Mark Gary, a developer in Gwinnett County convicted for bribery, got a reprieve for his cooperation in an ongoing federal probe of alleged corruption in Gwinnett.

Instead of getting to spend more than four years in federal prison, Gary was meted with just two years plus three years under probation.

Gary was convicted for bribing Shirley Lasseter, the former commissioner of Gwinnett County, to vote for his proposal of a station for waste transfer costing $4 million.

Doug Gilfillan, the assistant United States attorney, said he agreed to reducing the sentence as Gary's cooperation, which included secretly recording his conversations with elected officials, could lead to the indictment of another person involved in the alleged corruption.

However, Atlanta defense attorney Paul Kish representing Gary, said that he and his client are disappointed with the sentence.

According to Kish, Gary deserved more because his cooperation was extensive.

But the judge did not buy Gary's claim that he was a victim of what he alleges as a corrupt system in Gwinnett.

It is not known when the trial of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis will begin after Courtney L. Johnson, a Superior Court Judge, approved the defense's request for a delay.

Ellis was supposed to stand trial for corruption starting August 19.

The defense lawyers' request did not include a date for the trial to begin.

Jill Polster, Atlanta criminal defense attorney, said the delay will be for the best interest of the residents of DeKalb County.

She added that no one wants to have a trial twice which is what happens when the first trial ends in a conviction and an appeal is filed because it was rushed.

A plea deal agreement has Broderick Kenyo Smith admitting to manslaughter instead of capital murder in the death of Arlando Maurice Pritchett in 2012.

The plea agreement will have Smith serving just a year in jail for a split sentence of 10 years.

His jail stay will be followed with probation for three years.

Should Smith violate his probation, he could be made to serve the rest of his 10-year sentence.

According to the police, Pritchett had an argument with a cab driver prior to his shooting while Smith admitted that he had been driving a cab during the time of the incident.

Birmingham defense attorney Charles Salvagio said Smith had shot Pritchett because the latter had robbed him.

J. Kevin Kelley was handed a six-year prison sentence for his involvement in the Cuyahoga corruption case, considered as one of the biggest in the county.

Kelley was the first defendant to offer his cooperation to the FBI who was investigating the corruption issue.

He admitted to being the one who collects and pays off the bribes to county officials.

During his sentencing, Kelley issued an apology to his family as well as the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County.

Kelley has also been ordered to pay restitution of about $700,000.

Kelley's cooperation ensured the cooperation of other defendants in the case and the conviction of several people involved in the corruption.

Cleveland defense attorney John Gibbons said there is no excuse for Kelley's involvement in the corruption, however, his cooperation is the best way for him to make amends.

Theft charges against Subhanna Beyah were dropped after her victim, New York Giants' Shaun Rogers, refused to cooperate with the authorities.

Jonathan Meltz, Beyah's lawyer in Miami, could not be contacted to comment on the issue.

Miami prosecutors believed that Beyah did to Rogers what she did to two other men, wherein she drugged them before stealing their valuables.

According to the police, Rogers had met Beyah at the nightclub of the hotel where he was staying.

Together with another couple, they had gone up to his room where he went to sleep while the others were partying. Before he went to sleep, he put his jewelry inside a safe in the room. When he woke up, Beyah was already gone and so was his jewelry worth almost $500,000.

Rogers had told the prosecution that he was not willing to cooperate during the one time he spoke with them.

Despite the failure of the theft charges to prosper, the prosecution instead will go ahead with charging Beyah for violating her probation wherein she is looking at a 20-year prison sentence if convicted.

William S. Kern, a Baltimore Police instructor, was handed a 60-day jail stay, for shooting Raymond Gray, a police recruit, while they were doing exercises.

Kern, who has been in service for 19 years, told the court during his trial that he had brought a live gun to the exercises and he had accidentally used it instead of the training weapon.

Gray was hit in the head and was blinded in one eye when Kern fired his gun through the window to show the recruits the danger of lingering near the door, the window or the hallway.

Kern said that he brought his gun to the training for the safety of the recruits because the facility where they were having their exercises is not secure.

Baltimore defense attorney Shaun F. Owens had argued for Kern's release saying that his client's eventual dismissal from the service would already be enough of a punishment.

Kern is on a 60-day suspension while the Baltimore Police conducts an investigation within its ranks.

Gray's family, who expressed dissatisfaction with the sentence, has also filed a civil lawsuit in relation to the incident and is being represented by Baltimore litigator A. Dwight Pettit.

A murder conviction will have Mark Anthony Garcia spending 20 years in prison for the death of Michael Angelo Morales.

Morales was shot to death outside a nightclub in 2008.

Garcia's first murder trial ended in a mistrial but he was not so lucky in the second trial.

Albert Acevedo, a defense attorney in San Antonio, said that his client, Garcia, was not the killer.

Instead he was the one who tried to stop another man, Hector Lozano, from shooting Morales.

Lozano is still awaiting for his own trial.