Latest news with #FultonCountySheriff'sOffice
Toronto Sun
11-07-2025
- Toronto Sun
Atlanta man gets more than 150 years in prison for starving daughter and abusing other children
Published Jul 11, 2025 • 1 minute read This booking photo provided by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office shows Rodney McWeay. Photo by Tiffany Turner / AP ATLANTA (AP) — An Atlanta man accused of killing his 4-year-old daughter by denying her food and water has been sentenced to more than 150 years in prison after being convicted of murder, kidnapping and other charges, prosecutors said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Rodney McWeay, 33, was sentenced Thursday in Treasure McWeay's death. He was also convicted of other counts stemming from the abuse of his two other children, who are 3 and 4, authorities said. 'Treasure suffered from hunger, thirst and neglect at the hands of her father, who used violence and control to keep her and her brothers from the help they needed,' Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a statement. McWeay was arrested in December 2023 after Treasure was pronounced dead at an Atlanta hospital. Police warrants stated that she was extremely malnourished and 'her face appeared to be sunken in around the eyes and cheekbones,' The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. An autopsy found that she weighed only 24 pounds. McWeay did not have custody of any of his children at the time, authorities said. About five months before Treasure died, he had kidnapped them from their mother's home in Maryland and prevented Georgia child protection workers from speaking to them, the Journal-Constitution reported. Editorial Cartoons World Toronto & GTA Toronto & GTA Toronto & GTA
UPI
27-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Kenneth Chesebro disbarred in N.Y. over fake electors conviction
A New York State court on Thursday disbarred Kenneth Chesebro over his effort to overturn the 2020 general election. File Photo via Fulton County Sheriff's Office/UPI | License Photo June 27 (UPI) -- Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect behind the fake electors scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House following his 2020 election loss, has been disbarred in New York. A New York State appellate court issued its ruling Thursday. In support of its decision to disbar him, the court pointed to Chesebro's guilty plea in Georgia to a single count of conspiracy to file false documents in the bogus Trump elector scheme. "On that basis alone, respondent's conduct brings into question his integrity and fitness to continue engaging in the practice of law in New York," the court said in its seven-page opinion. It continued that his conduct "undercuts the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold. Moreover, his cavalier attitude regarding his actions, particularly in the face of his extensive background in the areas of constitutional and election law, largely aggravates his conduct, notwithstanding his lack of disciplinary history." Chesebro was charged in an August 2023 multi-count indictment along with Donald Trump and 17 others for their involvement in a scheme to overturn the state's 2020 election results that showed the New York real state mogul had lost to Joe Biden. The 64-year-old is widely considered the architect of what would become known as the fake electors scheme, which was a strategy to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in seven battleground states that he lost to Biden, including Georgia. In October 2024, Chesebro struck a plea deal with prosecutors in the case, agreeing to plead guilty to a single conspiracy count and a sentence of five years of probation, 100 hours of community service, restitution of $5,000 and a requirement to write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia. Chesebro was suspended from practicing law in New York State in October.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Yahoo
Former Georgia jail guard abused inmates with Taser and lied about it, authorities say
ATLANTA (AP) — A former Fulton County jail guard has been indicted on federal civil rights charges after prosecutors said she used her Taser abusively against three inmates and then lied to cover it up. Khadijah Solomon, a 47-year-old Fairburn resident, pleaded not guilty to the six-count indictment in federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday and was released on bail. The troubled jail where Solomon worked has been under a federal civil rights investigation for the past two years and was also the site where Donald Trump surrendered on election interference charges in 2023. Solomon's lawyer, Devin Rafus, said his client will fight the allegations. 'The Fulton County Sheriff's Office is under a lot of political pressure with the Department of Justice investigating the jail,' Rafus said via email. 'My client is collateral damage of that pressure.' The June 11 indictment said Solomon used her Taser 'without legal justification" against separate inmates at the Atlanta jail on Jan. 16, Jan. 25 and Jan. 27. The indictment alleges that Solomon then wrote reports falsely justifying what she did. In reality, sheriff's office investigators said body-worn camera video showed the pretrial detainees were compliant and not resisting. In the Jan. 16 incident, sheriff's office investigators said Solomon approached an inmate who was kicking his cell door and said she was about to 'pop' him before opening the cell and using the Taser on the inmate. Investigators said Solomon then stunned the inmate twice more. She later claimed in her report that the inmate 'was getting ready to throw' a tray at her. The sheriff's office in February announced that it had fired Solomon and two other jail officers — Chantrece Buggs and LaQuondria Pierce — arrested them, and charged them with state crimes including aggravated assault and violating their oath of office. Solomon, a jail sergeant, was also charged with cruelty to inmates and false statements or writings. At the time, investigators said Pierce used her Taser without justification on an inmate Feb. 13 and Buggs encouraged Solomon's violence. No federal charges against the other two were announced, and neither has yet been indicted in a state court. Rafus, who is also the lawyer representing Pierce, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on her state charges. Natalie Ammons, a spokesperson for Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, said the sheriff's office had worked with the FBI in the Solomon case. 'On three occasions, Khadijah Solomon allegedly tased Fulton County Jail detainees without a legitimate purpose, causing each of them pain and injury," U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. "Abuses of power of this kind are unconstitutional, erode our community's trust, and will be prosecuted.' The U.S. Justice Department in July 2023 opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Fulton County, citing violence, filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. That investigation found that jail officers didn't receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force and were found to engage in 'a pattern or practice of using excessive force' against people in county custody. The Justice Department and Fulton County officials announced in January that they had entered into a court-enforceable consent decree. An independent monitor was appointed in February to oversee that agreement.
San Francisco Chronicle
19-06-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
Former Georgia jail guard abused inmates with Taser and lied about it, authorities say
ATLANTA (AP) — A former Fulton County jail guard has been indicted on federal civil rights charges after prosecutors said she used her Taser abusively against three inmates and then lied to cover it up. Khadijah Solomon, a 47-year-old Fairburn resident, pleaded not guilty to the six-count indictment in federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday and was released on bail. The troubled jail where Solomon worked has been under a federal civil rights investigation for the past two years and was also the site where Donald Trump surrendered on election interference charges in 2023. Solomon's lawyer, Devin Rafus, said his client will fight the allegations. 'The Fulton County Sheriff's Office is under a lot of political pressure with the Department of Justice investigating the jail,' Rafus said via email. 'My client is collateral damage of that pressure.' The June 11 indictment said Solomon used her Taser 'without legal justification" against separate inmates at the Atlanta jail on Jan. 16, Jan. 25 and Jan. 27. The indictment alleges that Solomon then wrote reports falsely justifying what she did. In reality, sheriff's office investigators said body-worn camera video showed the pretrial detainees were compliant and not resisting. In the Jan. 16 incident, sheriff's office investigators said Solomon approached an inmate who was kicking his cell door and said she was about to 'pop' him before opening the cell and using the Taser on the inmate. Investigators said Solomon then stunned the inmate twice more. She later claimed in her report that the inmate 'was getting ready to throw' a tray at her. The sheriff's office in February announced that it had fired Solomon and two other jail officers — Chantrece Buggs and LaQuondria Pierce — arrested them, and charged them with state crimes including aggravated assault and violating their oath of office. Solomon, a jail sergeant, was also charged with cruelty to inmates and false statements or writings. At the time, investigators said Pierce used her Taser without justification on an inmate Feb. 13 and Buggs encouraged Solomon's violence. No federal charges against the other two were announced, and neither has yet been indicted in a state court. Rafus, who is also the lawyer representing Pierce, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on her state charges. Natalie Ammons, a spokesperson for Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, said the sheriff's office had worked with the FBI in the Solomon case. 'On three occasions, Khadijah Solomon allegedly tased Fulton County Jail detainees without a legitimate purpose, causing each of them pain and injury," U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. "Abuses of power of this kind are unconstitutional, erode our community's trust, and will be prosecuted.' The U.S. Justice Department in July 2023 opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Fulton County, citing violence, filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. That investigation found that jail officers didn't receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force and were found to engage in 'a pattern or practice of using excessive force' against people in county custody. The Justice Department and Fulton County officials announced in January that they had entered into a court-enforceable consent decree. An independent monitor was appointed in February to oversee that agreement.
.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Miami Herald
18-06-2025
- Miami Herald
Video of officer tasing inmates as punishment in Atlanta exposes cover-up, feds say
A jail supervisor lied in reports she prepared about using force against three men detained at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, to hide how she repeatedly tased them as punishment, without legal authority, according to federal prosecutors. Video evidence from Khadijah Solomon's body-worn camera captured her tasing each of the men 'excessively,' shocking and stunning them as they stayed 'compliant and non-threatening,' prosecutors said. One of the detainees she tased had been handcuffed, according to prosecutors. Solomon, 47, of Fairburn, was arraigned in federal court on June 17 on charges of using unreasonable force and obstructing justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a news release. Fairburn, in Fulton County, is about a 20-mile drive southwest from Atlanta. Attorney information for Solomon was not immediately available the afternoon of June 18. The case against her stems from an FBI investigation that revealed Solomon, who was a detention officer sergeant with the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, had abused her power at the county jail on Jan. 16, the office's communications director, Natalie L. Ammons, confirmed to McClatchy News on June 18. In February, the sheriff's office announced Solomon and two other female employees at the facility, also known as the Rice Street Jail, were arrested on assault charges and fired from their positions in connection with mistreatment of detainees. The agency helped the FBI investigate Solomon's alleged use of excessive force, Ammons confirmed. On June 10, she was indicted in the federal case, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. She repeatedly violated the Fulton County Sheriff's Office's use of force policy, which 'forbids deploying a taser as a form of punishment' and in line with the 14th Amendment, prosecutors said. Then she tried to cover up what happened in false reports, according to prosecutors. 'On three occasions, Khadijah Solomon allegedly tased Fulton County Jail detainees without a legitimate purpose, causing each of them pain and injury,' U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. 'Abuses of power of this kind are unconstitutional, erode our community's trust, and will be prosecuted.' State charges In a Feb. 17 statement, the day of Solomon's arrest, the sheriff's office announced she was charged with multiple state offenses: one count of aggravated assaultone count of cruelty to inmatesone count of false statements or writingsthree counts of violation of oath by public officer The two other jail employees, Chantrece Buggs and LaQuondria Pierce, were each charged with one count of aggravated assault and one count of violation of oath by public officer, according to the sheriff's office. They both worked as detention officers. Information on their legal representation was not immediately available. At the time, Fulton County Sheriff Patrick 'Pat' Labat said that their 'arrests are part of an ongoing effort to uphold professional standards and ensure the humane treatment of all residents in our custody.' 'The Sheriff's Office has reaffirmed its dedication to enforcing strict policies against misconduct and has vowed to continue working toward reforms that improve jail conditions,' Labat added. Fulton County Jail investigation The same month prosecutors said Solomon wrongly tased the three detainees, the Justice Department reached an agreement with Fulton County in January to address 'inhumane' conditions at the jail, McClatchy News reported. The conditions came under scrutiny after the family of Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old man who spent three months at the Fulton County Jail until he died in September 2022, called for changes and the facility's closure. His family's attorneys said Thompson had been 'eaten alive' by insects inside a filthy cell, where his body was found 'riddled' with bites. The Justice Department began investigating in 2023, resulting in the department issuing a 97-page report in November that found people held at the jail were at risk of violent attacks and experienced excessive force, unsanitary conditions and malnourishment, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
