APS Educators Still Arriving At Jail

Five more of the 35 educators indicted in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal have arrived at the Fulton County Jail Wednesday, one day after the deadline for reporting to be booked.
Hall, others report to Fulton County Jail
What’s next in APS criminal case
Atlanta Public Schools

Hall, others report to the Fulton County Jail

By Mike Morris and Mark Niesse

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

What's Next for APS Criminal Case

After just missing Tuesday’s midnight deadline to turn themselves in to authorities, four more of the 35 educators indicted in the Atlanta PublicSchools cheating scandal were booked into the Fulton County Jail early Wednesday. Another defendant arrived at the jail after daybreak Wednesday.
Dana Evans, Millicent Few, Diane Buckner Webb and Shani Robinson were booked into the jail after the midnight deadline, according to online jail records. Just before 8:30 a.m., Willie Davenport walked into the jail accompanied by her attorney.
That left just three of the 35 teachers, testing coordinators and school administrators - Lucious Brown, Clarietta Davis and Lera Middlebrook - that had still not surrendered at the jail as of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to jail spokeswoman Tracy Flanagan.
Just after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall, walked into the jail surrounded by her legal team. Hall, 66, flashed a slight smile but did not comment, on the advice of her attorneys.

Hall Mug Shot

Shortly before Hall arrived, top administrators, Tamara Cotman, Sharon Davis-Williams and Michael Pitts, came to the jail with a throng of lawyers and friends.
All of those who have turned themselves in, with the exception of Donald Bullock, have been released from jail on bond, Flanagan told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at daybreak Wedensday.
Tuesday was the deadline set by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard for all of the accused to turn themselves in.
Some of the educators spent several hours in jail before posting bond amounts starting at $40,000.
Hall’s bond is $200,000 bond. A grand jury had recommended a $7.5 million bond, but that amount was reduced after negotiations with prosecutors.
“I don’t think there was really any serious entertainment of that,” said her attorney, David J. Bailey.
Teachers booked
Teachers moved from the school house to the jailhouse when they allowed themselves to be fingerprinted and taken into custody.
Three teachers from Humphries Elementary surrendered to authorities on charges of racketeering, making false statements and theft by taking.
Lisa Terry, Ingrid Abella-Sly and Wendy Ahmed are accused of altering standardized test scores in 2009 and then accepting bonus money based on the falsified test results. Abella-Sly and Ahmed both misled Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents when they claimed they didn’t have knowledge of anyone giving students answers to the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.
At Parks Middle School, teacher Starlette Mitchell is accused of committing similar crimes, including making false statements to investigators. Her bond was originally $400,000, but negotiations with Howard resulted in her bond shrinking to $50,000 after she agreed to a gag order prohibiting her from speaking to the media about the case, said her attorney Gerald Griggs.
He also represents Angela Williamson, a former teacher at Dobbs Elementary. Williamson was the first educator to win an appeal for her job before an Atlanta Public Schools tribunal last June, but she lost a second tribunal in December after the district attorney’s office produced new evidence.
“They want everyone to know they are innocent and will fight this vigorously,” Griggs said.
Williamson’s bond was initially set at $500,000, but it was reduced to $60,000.
The attorney for teacher Francis Mack, Torris Butterfield, said his client did not cheat. “She gave not one, not two but three statements and she never changed her story,” he said.
Testing coordinators held
Former Benteen Elementary School testing coordinator Theresia Copeland was checked into the jail on charges of racketeering, theft and making false statements.
Copeland allegedly collected a bonus check based on falsified test results and misled investigators when she said she wasn’t involved in cheating, according to the indictment.
Her attorney, Warren Fortson, said he wants to Copeland’s $1 million bond to be reduced.
“I think this whole thing has turned into something rather ridiculous,” Fortson told reporters outside the jail. “They didn’t treat Al Capone like this.”
Fortson said a bond is meant to ensure that a defendant appears at trial.
“I would be very hopeful that a judge would look at it and say, ‘I don’t think that a Cobb County grandmamma needs … $1 million to secure that she will be here,’” he said.
Former Parks Middle School testing coordinator Sandra Ward received a $50,000 bond on charges of racketeering and making false statements.
The indictment claims Ward falsified students’ answer sheets on standardized tests and then took bonus money based on the inflated test scores.

What’s next for APS criminal case

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Now that defendants in the criminal case alleging cheating on standardized tests at Atlanta’s public schools have turned themselves in, what comes next is the great unknown.

The certainties are this:

• All 35 former Atlanta Public Schools administrators and educators were required to surrender Tuesday at Fulton County Jail, where their mug shots and fingerprints were taken and entered into the national criminal database.
• There was no way to get around going to the lockup on Rice Street.
• Many lawyers negotiated lower bonds to get their clients released.
• If defendants did not made arrangements for bond, they were to be given a physical exam and assigned to a cell block.

Once all that is settled, the arduous process of going to trial will begin. And that means uncertainties.

At least one motion to “quash” the indictment has been filed and more are likely.

Otherwise, defendants still have to enter pleas — most likely “not guilty” — and then schedules for legal proceedings such as discovery of evidence, motions and briefs will be set.

Some of the 35 named in the indictment may try to reach agreements with prosecutors, as is often the case in criminal trials. Some will want a trial, hoping for public exoneration.

In the coming weeks and months there will be more motions filed, hearings held and, somewhere down the road, perhaps a trial.

Tempers Flare During Storm Recovery

Motorists screamed at each other at gas stations as fuel shortages spread across the New York metropolitan area in the wake of Superstorm Sandy on Friday.

Long Lines, Rising Tempers Seen at Gas Stations

Superstorm Relief Fund Started

Long Lines, Rising Tempers Seen at Gas Stations

By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY

The Associated Press

Superstorm Relief Fund Started

NEW YORK — Motorists increasingly desperate for a fill-up fumed in long lines at gas stations and screamed at each other Friday as fuel shortages in Superstorm Sandy's wake spread across the metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, a backlash appeared to be building against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to hold the New York City Marathon on Sunday as scheduled, with some New Yorkers complaining that going ahead with the 26.2-mile race would be insensitive and divert city resources at a time when many are suffering.
Four days after Sandy slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, the U.S. death toll climbed past 90 in 10 states, and included two boys who were torn from their mother's grasp by rushing floodwaters in Staten Island during the storm. Their bodies were found in a marshy area on Thursday.
Gasoline Scarce
With fuel deliveries in the East disrupted by storm damage and many gas stations lacking electricity to run their pumps, gasoline became a precious commodity, especially for those who depend on their cars for their livelihoods.
Some drivers complained of waiting three and four hours in line, only to see the pumps run out when it was almost their turn. Cars ran out of gas before they reached the front of the line. Police officers were assigned to gas stations to maintain order. In Queens, a man was charged Thursday with flashing a gun at another motorist who complained he was cutting in line.

Photo by The Associated Press

At a Hess gas station Friday morning in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the line snaked at least 10 blocks through narrow and busy streets. That caused confusion among other drivers, some of whom accidentally found themselves in the gas line. People got out of their cars to yell at them.
In addition, at least 60 people were lined up to fill red gas cans for their generators.
Vince Levine got in line in his van at 5 a.m. By 8 a.m., he was still two dozen cars from the front. "I had a half-tank when I started. I've got a quarter-tank now," he said.
"There's been a little screaming, a little yelling. And I saw one guy banging on the hood of a car. But mostly it's been OK," he said.
Cabdriver Harum Prince joined a line for gasoline in Manhattan that stretched 17 blocks down 10th Avenue, with about half the cars yellow cabs, a crucial means of getting around in a city with a still-crippled mass transit system.
"I don't blame anybody," he said. "God, he knows why he brought this storm."
Many Without Power
More 3.8 million homes and business in the East were still without power, down from a peak of 8.5 million. But across the New York metropolitan area, there were more signs that life was beginning to return to something approaching normal.
Consolidated Edison, the power company serving New York, said electricity should be restored by Saturday to customers in Manhattan and to homes and offices served by underground power lines in Brooklyn. More subway and rail lines started operating again Friday, and the Holland Tunnel into New York was open to buses.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said Atlantic City's 12 casinos could reopen immediately after a nearly five-day shutdown for Superstorm Sandy. Sandy slammed into the shoreline Monday night just a few miles from Atlantic City, which was flooded and lost an old section of its word-famous boardwalk but fared much better than other parts of New Jersey's coast.
The prospect of better times ahead did little to mollify residents who spent another day and night in the dark.
"It's too much. You're in your house. You're freezing," said Geraldine Giordano, 82, a lifelong resident of the West Village. Near her home, city employees had set up a sink where residents could get fresh water, if they needed it. There were few takers. "Nobody wants to drink that water," Giordano said.
Concern About The Elderly
There was increasing worry about the elderly. Community groups have been going door-to-door on the upper floors of darkened Manhattan apartment buildings, and city workers and volunteer in hard-hit Newark, N.J., delivered meals to senior citizens and others stuck in their buildings.
"It's been mostly older folks who aren't able to get out," said Monique George of Manhattan-based Community Voices Heard. "In some cases, they hadn't talked to folks in a few days. They haven't even seen anybody because the neighbors evacuated. They're actually happy that folks are checking, happy to see another person. To not see someone for a few days, in this city, it's kind of weird."
On Thursday, police recovered the bodies of two brothers, ages 2 and 4, who were swept away after the SUV driven by their mother, Glenda Moore, stalled in Sandy's floodwaters Monday evening.
"Terrible, absolutely terrible," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as he announced that Brandon and Connor had been found dead. "It just compounds all the tragic aspects of this horrific event."
The discovery was another heartbreaking blow to Staten Island, a hard-hit borough that residents complained has been largely forgotten. At least 19 people have been killed in Staten Island, about half the death toll for all of New York City.
Garbage is piling up, a stench hangs in the air and mud-caked mattresses and couches line the streets. Residents picked through their belongings, searching for anything that could be salvaged.
"We have hundreds of people in shelters," said James Molinaro, the borough's president. "Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're homeless now."
Molinaro complained the American Red Cross "is nowhere to be found," and some residents questioned what they called the lack of a response by government disaster relief agencies.