Accused Judge Cries Government Misconduct

Defendants Salvo Back at Feds in Ga. Court Corruption Case
The ABA Journal by Martha Neil

A former Georgia judge and his wife are firing back in a federal prosecution over claimed court corruption in the Alapaha Judicial Circuit, alleging "outrageous government misconduct" in matters related to the ongoing case against them and at least nine other defendants. Specifically, lawyers for Berrien Sutton and his wife, Lisa Sutton, point in two motion filings to what a legal publication describes as "a sting in which federal agents gave marijuana to an ex-con, arranged his arrest and allegedly told him to try to bribe his way out of trouble." There is also other claimed prosecutorial misconduct, writes the Fulton County Daily Report, in an article reprinted by New York Lawyer. The two are seeking to have the charges against them dismissed or, failing that, to have the prosecutors removed from the case. The alleged target of the sting was Brooks Blitch III, former chief judge of the Alapaha Circuit, who is also a defendant in the federal case.

The Suttons are accused of honest services fraud, due to claimed overpayments for their government work. (She is a former Alapaha court administrator.) Blitch faces fraud, extortion and conspiracy charges, notes another article in the Daily Report. "Most of the indictments of other court and law enforcement personnel were drawn from federal wiretaps of Blitch's chambers in the Clinch County Courthouse," the reprinted Daily Report article states. Prosecutors either could not be reached by the legal publication for comment or declined to comment about the claimed misconduct.