Over 60 Atlanta ‘Stop Cop City’ Activists Indicted on RICO Charges
Other charges include domestic terrorism, arson in the first degree, and money laundering.
A Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury indicted over 60 “Stop Cop City” activists on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges.
Yes, the same grand jury that indicted President Donald Trump.
Defend the Atlanta Forest group members have been occupying or at least trying to occupy the 381 acres of forest owned by the Atlanta Police Foundation since May 2022. The city leased the land to construct the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
We’ve covered the antics of these activists.
- Five Left-Wing Activists Arrested for Domestic Terrorism in Georgia
- Antifa Members Arrested in Atlanta are White and Five Aren’t Even From Georgia
The latest indictment involves activists mentioned in this article:
Guess what. The majority of the defendants in this indictment are also not from Georgia. You’d think adding 40 people to the indictment would even out.
Nope.
I wish I had enough time to read the 109 pages. The indictment listed 225 alleged “overt acts in furtherance of the racketeering conspiracy.” Yikes!
Here is a good summary until I can read through it:
The bulk of the defendants named in the indictment involves protestors arrested on March 5 at the training center site. Twenty-three protestors were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism after allegedly throwing large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at police officers at the site. All 23 only face one count of RICO in the indictment.
Three people accused of handing out flyers in April identifying one of the troopers involved in the Teran’s death were also indicted. The flyers were distributed in Bartow County, which is the area where the trooper is believe to live, according to The Intercept.
The indictment also names bail fund organizers, Marlon Scott Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson, who were arrested in May 2023 during a raid at a home on Mayson Avenue for alleged actions taken as executives with the nonprofit Network for Strong Communities, which supported the nonprofit Defend the Atlanta Forest. All three face one count of RICO and 15 counts of money laundering in the indictment.
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Comments
I wish as much had been done with respect to the George Floyd riots, looting and arson all over the country, where vastly more damage and injury was done. We might have avoided the current pandemic of shoplifting, lawlessness and destruction of businesses and jobs..
It’s another bogus use of RICO, not good on either side.
The right legal move is throw them out and charge with trespassing.
Why is it bogus? The individuals named are indeed part of an organization and they are indeed being accused of criminal acts. The organization helps to facilitate those acts. That’s precisely the case for a RICO violation.
They are just trying to justify using it on the Republicans.
Not exactly. The enterprise must be organized for the purpose of criminality, like drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, prostitution, etc. An organization that has a legal objective, even if using criminal activity in pursuance of its legal objective, is not a proper target of a RICO case, even though individual acts of organization members may be tried. OTOH, RICO is used to try all the members of the organization when criminal activity is the objective of the enterprise.
This points out why charging Trump and his associates under a RICO statute is inappropriate. The enterprise had the legal objective of overturning an election. Even if some of them actually crossed a line in furtherance of that objective by committing criminal acts, RICO still does not apply.
Sure would be nice to know what they consider the criminal organization is and what it is doing that is criminal. That’s kind of key to this.
You mean like shooting at the police, assault and battery of citizens, destruction of private and public property.
I bet the name of this organization “actually represents an idea.”
If so, it would be nice to see it in the post.
In this instance, I’m good with them throwing the kitchen sink at them… even if it doesn’t all stick.
These are criminals who have political enablers.
And just like that the leftist d/prog don’t like RICO statutes anymore.
They were created to attack the mafia, who controlled labor unions, so really, they never did.
I don’t see the Democrats having any more problem going after the Mafia than Capone had going after Bugs Moran.
The D’s and the Mafia may form temporary alliances when their interest line up, but they are still basically rival gangs.