1st Trump co-defendant in Ga. case pleads guilty
One of the 19 defendants in a Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his allies pleaded guilty Friday to five misdemeanor charges, under a deal with prosecutors in which he would receive five years of probation.
The guilty plea of Scott Hall, 59, a Georgia bail bondsman, was a significant victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who secured an agreement from Hall to testify against other defendants. No other defendants have taken pleas; two of them, lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, are scheduled to be tried together starting next month after demanding speedy trials.
Hall had been charged with racketeering, as well as six other felonies, for helping to carry out a breach of voting equipment and data at the elections office in rural Coffee County, Georgia, in January 2021 after local pro-Trump officials let them in. He and other Trump allies were apparently looking for evidence of ballot fraud after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
More broadly, the indictment handed up in August accuses Trump and the other defendants of a criminal conspiracy in which they tried in a number of ways to overturn the election results in the state.
Appearing in a Fulton County courtroom before Judge Scott McAfee on Friday afternoon, Hall, wearing a dark suit and opennecked shirt, pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of intentional interference with performance of election duties.
Under the terms of the deal, Hall is to pay a $5,000 fine, surrender his firearms carry license, perform 200 hours of community service and write a letter of apology to the people of Georgia. He is not to participate in any activities related to the administration of elections, and he agreed to testify truthfully against other co-defendants if called upon to do so.
The development may have dealt a particular blow to Powell, just weeks before her trial date. She and Hall took part in a plan by Trump allies to access election equipment in Coffee County, about 200 miles from Atlanta, in January 2021, according to the indictment.
In a separate hearing Friday morning, McAfee announced that 450 potential jurors would be called to the courthouse Oct. 20 to fill out a questionnaire before the trial of Powell and Chesebro, who is accused of devising a plan to recruit a group of bogus pro-Trump electors.
That trial, which would be the first related to the four criminal cases in which Trump has been charged this year, will be closely watched by lawyers for the former president and the other remaining defendants, whose trials have not yet been scheduled.
Melissa D. Redmon, an assistant law professor at the University of Georgia and a former Fulton County prosecutor, said that Hall's plea deal Friday shows “that the state is working to shore up their evidence” in advance of Chesebro's and Powell's trial. She said the deal was “a good result for the state in that they have someone inside that conspiracy.”
Hall's cooperation could cause problems for some of Powell's co-defendants, including two others accused of involvement in the data breach: Misty Hampton, a former Coffee County elections supervisor, and Cathy Latham, a former head of the county's Republican Party.
Hall could also provide information about other defendants accused of taking part in an effort to elicit a false confession from a Fulton County elections worker, Ruby Freeman. The indictment states that Hall was involved in a phone call with a co-defendant, Trevian Kutti, a day after Kutti met with Freeman in an Atlanta suburb.
The impact of Hall's cooperation on Trump was less clear. But securing testimony from any defendant in a racketeering case can strengthen prosecutors' ability to convince jurors of the existence of the “criminal organization” they lay out in their indictment.