A long chapter in Savannah political history has seemingly come to an end with a Chatham County Grand Jury’s decision Friday not to recommend charges against City Alderman Tony Thomas in the wake of a GBI investigation that began in February.
14 of 18 jurors agreed that Thomas’s activities involving underage people rose to the level of misdemeanor, but not felony status.
In addition, those 14 found that the allegations against Thomas were outside the statute of limitations and thus weren’t eligible for consideration.
District Attorney Meg Heap reported in a statement:
“Multiple victims’ testimonies corroborated that Mr. Thomas displays a pattern of grooming young males to become sexual partners,” Heap says jurors found.
Heap said that while Mr. Thomas’ actions “clearly” violated state law, “unfortunately they are only misdemeanors and not felony cases.”
“Testimony included a pattern of behavior by Mr. Tony Thomas that could be described as a person trying to obtain sexual contract with another person in a predatory manner,” Heap said.
The main factor cited by jurors in their decision was the statute of limitations.
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This article appears in Aug 24-30, 2016.
I just don’t get the “play” here. If the Grand Jury were “criminal” and Heap said that the statute of limitations had tolled then that would be the end of it. In fact, no reason to even call a Grand Jury. But she set up a “civil grand jury”?? Why? Why not just let the case go to the court? Why not let a real jury — one with the ability to hear evidence on both sides — listen to a case brought by plaintiffs and Thomas’ defense team determine if he has civil responsibility for harming people. Why the cover up on the part of Meg Heap?
She did Mr. Thomas a big favor. She certainly didn’t do the victims any favors at all. They can now proceed in court but with a Big Heap Strike against them and for no good reason other than her desire to protect a pedophile. Disgraceful.
But Savannah’s just like anyplace else— people and businesses can decide it’s just not worth it anymore.
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Quite frankly, not enough is being done to make sure that people are succeeding in schools, getting good jobs, access to transportation and effective mentoring. Additionally, there are not enough community/police interactions to help people 1) feel safe; 2) feel that they can “confide” in the police when they know there’s trouble around; 3) incentives to be part of the solution.
Everyone needs to step up: create good jobs, create after school jobs and solutions; make sure that the schools are doing their jobs; make sure that every child gets a good hot breakfast and a decent lunch; make sure that no child is being abused or harmed in his or her household; establish as many ties with the community that each member of government can — offer incentives to govt employees to create opportunities for communication in their neighborhoods.
And finally make sure that their representatives are not undermining relationships with children by offering inappropriate incentives. Pedophilia is a sickness as well as a crime. It robs children of their innocence and opens them up for a lifetime of mental and physical illness. I don’t care what day of the week it is, what year it is, what city we’re in, Pedophiles should be prosecuted and sent to jail. And certainly any taint of that or any other sexual crime should be removed from the public sector. It brings a very bad example to local government. Just another group of people protecting “their own” against the people of the community. Shame!