Former Augusta district attorney and now assistant district attorney in Columbia County Natalie Paine has faced a near four year long legal battle that ultimately ended up in the Georgia Supreme Court and threatened to destroy her professionally.
Paine was targeted in a witch hunt for doing the right thing as a prosecutor.
On the Friday before the November 2020 election, an anonymous complaint was made against Paine claiming she violated defendant Vaughn Verdi’s Constitutional rights by attempting to use illegally obtained evidence against him in court.
In the early stages of discovery in the case, Paine dutifully gave the defense all of the evidence provided to her by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, as is required by law. In the boxes and boxes of evidence were the jailhouse recordings.
Paine did what any good prosecutor should do and that is provide the defense with every bit of evidence provided to her before even reviewing the evidence herself.
There is no indication that Paine ever instructed the sheriff’s office to record Verdi talking with his attorney, and there was no evidence that Paine would have ever tried to introduce such evidence in court as no competent judge on planet Earth would allow it.
However, the Georgia Bar Association doubled down and demanded she be suspended for lying under oath.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Paine had done nothing unethical or illegal.
Thankfully, Paine’s attorneys agreed to work pro-bono, otherwise she would have been hit with a legal bill of over $150,000 up to this point just to clear her name and reputation.
And it is not over yet. Another anonymous complaint was filed with the Georgia Bar in February of this year.
It appears to us that Paine’s constitutional rights, at this point, are being violated.
Natalie Paine is a pillar of our community; she has made a name for herself as a tenacious pursuer of justice. Our streets are safer thanks to Paine, she is a hero in our community and should be treated as such.
Should Paine’s attorneys decline to battle against this new anonymous complaint without charging fees, then the community needs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her and raise any funding needed to pour the final bucket of water on this witch hunt.
