No More Tricks? Trial of Former School Superintendent Begins Oct. 28

750 jurors summoned for racketeering trial of former DeKalb School superintendent and others

Posted: 6:16 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, 2013

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BY RHONDA COOK - THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

Around 750 summonses have been sent in hopes of finding 12 jurors and four alternates to hear the upcoming racketeering trial of former DeKalb County School Superintendent Crawford Lewis, the district’s one-time chief operating officer Pat Reid and her ex-husband Tony Pope.

On Friday, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker repeatedly pointed out to the prosecuting and defense attorneys that the case will be crowded, complicated and time-consuming so they need to work out any possible issues now.

Former Dekalb County Schools COO Pat Reid was in court Friday with ex-husband Tony Pope for pre-trial motions.

It will be a long trial, possibly a month or more after it starts with jury selection on Oct. 28.

“I don’t want to derail this. We've sent out a boatload of jury summons,” Becker said.

The three were indicted in 2010. They were re-indicted in 2012. Then a third version of the indictment was returned July 18.

For more, see this full story in the AJC:  http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/750-jurors-summoned-for-racketeering-trial-of-form/nbGLR/

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) published almost 20 stories more until the three were indicted in May 2010.  The AJC has continued to track the case as the indictment went through three different versions, the key investigator and the two prosecutors resigned and it has moved toward trial 3 1/2 years later.  The judge still has some pretrial motions to decide and then the first of 750 prospective jurors will report on Oct. 28 for the start of the trial.