A jury delivered guilty verdicts today against DeKalb’s former chief operating officer Pat Reid and her ex-husband Tony Pope in a messy case that also involved former Superintendent Crawford Lewis.
Prosecutors say Reid used her position overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in school construction to help her husband's firm to collect more than $1 million beyond what he was owed. Indicted with Reid and Pope, Lewis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction for interfering with the investigation that led to the charges.
School district news increasingly takes place in the criminal courts. Today’s verdict concludes the courtroom drama in DeKalb. But there's more yet to come. The next trial will be the 34 APS educators implicated in CRCT cheating. That takes place in the spring. (
The AJC reports that a former elementary schoolteacher today became the first APS defendant to plead guilty.)
The allegations of racketeering and theft-by-taking in DeKalb contributed to the growing public disillusionment with the district, evidenced by the recent effort of seven schools to become the
