The Georgia Supreme Court will decide if former Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Natalie Paine should face disciplinary action for what occurred in the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office interrogation rooms four years ago.
The State Bar of Georgia Disciplinary Board decided there was probable cause to believe Paine violated rules of professional conduct in the investigation and prosecution of three people accused of taking part in a June 11, 2017, double homicide in which one of the victim’s bodies could not be located despite hundreds of hours spent in searches.
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The disciplinary board contends Paine’s license to practice law should be suspended for six months. Paine contends she didn’t violate the rules of professional conduct. It will be up to the Georgia Supreme Court to decide what if any rules were violated.
The disciplinary board asked the Georgia Supreme Court to appoint a special master to listen to each side and render a decision. The high court appointed Patrick Head. On Feb. 15, he ruled Paine did not violate the rules of conduct.
Head wrote in his order that the state bar’s Disciplinary Board wrongly wanted to hold Paine responsible for the conduct of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office. While Head agreed, “the conduct of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office was reprehensible, outrageous and all such other adjectives that can define such egregious conduct,” it wasn’t the district attorney’s doing.
What happened on Feb. 26, 2018 began when the lead investigator on the double murder case, Lt. Lucas Grant, was told through the jail staff that one of the suspects, Williams Krepps, was interested in maybe making a deal.
The night before, a security sweep of the jail uncovered a map in Vaughn Verdi’s cell. Both men were represented by counsel, but Grant testified he believed he could still talk to both. He called to tell Paine what he was going to do, and she called Krepps’ and Verdi’s defense attorneys to tell them.
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Both defense attorneys went to the sheriff’s office to speak to their clients that day. Neither Krepps nor Verdi had anything to say to sheriff investigators. The defense attorneys testified they didn’t know the recording equipment for the interrogation rooms recorded their conversations with their clients – a serious violation of a basic constitutional right to consult privately with a defense attorney.
Krepps’ and Verdi’s defense attorneys learned their privileged conversations were recorded because the recordings were included in the discovery. Paine said she copied 107 CDs she received from the Sheriff’s Office’s investigation of the double homicide and sent copies to the defense attorneys before reviewing it herself. She testified she didn’t know of the recorded attorney-client conversations until a news reporter asked her about it after a defense motion to dismiss the murder charges was filed.
The state disciplinary board contended Paine knew the attorney-client conversations would be recorded, that she arranged for the conversations to occur, that she distributed those privileged conversations, and used the information in prosecuting the case.
Paine said in court filings that she knew the sheriff’s office had recording equipment that was supposed to start recording from the time a person accused of a crime was put in the room until that person left the room. But in all of the hours of reviewing such recordings, she had never come across one that included conversations between the accused and his defense attorney.
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When she realized sheriff investigators couldn’t turn off the recording during such conversations, she gave the sheriff’s office $40,000 from her office budget to purchase new recording equipment that did allow them to turn off the audio recording.
The special master found it was the sheriff not Paine who should be held accountable and that the disciplinary board failed to convince him she violated any rules of conduct.
The disciplinary board appealed the special master’s finding to the Disciplinary Review Board. It decided Paine violated two rules of professional conduct because she knew of the sheriff office’s continuous recording and didn’t ensure the defense attorneys’ conversation with clients were not recorded, and that she changed her testimony between a hearing in Richmond County Superior Court and her response to the disciplinary board about the importance of finding the body of one of the victims, Preston Overton.
In April 2019, Krepps agreed to give up the location of Overton’s body in exchange for a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole for the murders of Overton and Garner. He admitted at the sentencing hearing he manipulated Verdi and Stephens into helping him after the fact. They each pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence. Verdi was sentenced to six years in prison followed by three years’ probation, and Stephens was sentenced to one year in prison followed by four years on probation. Both got credit for the two years they had already spent in jail.
The Georgia Supreme Court has set Paine’s disciplinary matter for the December term of court.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
