Robert Patterson was only 17 years old when Judge Ashley Wright saw him the first time. He had broken into a woman’s home.
He needed a chance to get back into school, go back to playing on the ball team, to have a chance to be a teen during what was left of his teen-age years. He worked, and he told Wright he liked to be busy.
Wright saw that as a good sign. With his mother in prison and his father out of the picture, Wright thought Patterson deserved a chance. She sentenced him to probation, a strict probation, and Patterson thrived, Wright said Wednesday.
He thrived for a time. But as the probation restrictions eased, Patterson started running into more trouble with the law. Drugs. A gun. Obstruction of an officer. Wright resisted suggestions to send him to prison.
“Everybody in the courtroom thought he was making a fool of me. And he was,” Wright said Wednesday, Jan. 26. Patterson was back in court Wednesday for a probation revocation hearing in Richmond County Superior Court. He has five felony convictions.
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In addition to adding more criminal convictions to his record since his first in 2018, Patterson became a confirmed member of the gang Loyalty Over Everything, according to sheriff investigators.
In his latest run in with law enforcement, Richmond County Sheriff investigators arrested Patterson along with three other alleged members of LOE: Henri Beach, 20; John Turner, 33; and Kelvin Labord, 29.
LOE has been in the news several times in recent years. In 2017, a massive gang indictment was returned that accused various alleged LOE members of multiple crimes including homicide and aggravated assault. One of those arrested with Patterson on Dec. 6, 2021 was named in that indictment, Labord. His case is pending and he was _ and is again _ free on bond.
LOE was in the news earlier this month when a gang related shooting Jan. 8 at Dogwood Terrance left 8-year-old Arbrie Anthony dead. The suspected shooter, according to sheriff’s detectives, is LOE.
Patterson wasn’t involved into that shooting. He was in jail and has been since the Dec. 6 arrest when investigators found over 500 grams of marijuana and three guns in the vehicle Patterson said he and the three others took to the Prime Time bar that night.
“My best guess is that he is glad he’s been in custody recently,” considering what has happened lately, Wright said. She had told Patterson the last time she saw him that if he didn’t stop, someone was going to get hurt, Wright reminded Patterson on Wednesday.
Investigators believe LOE’s battle with another gang led to the drive-by shooting that killed Arbrie.
Antoine Redfield, 21, is charged with murder in Arbrie’s death. One of the men arrested when local and federal officers tracked Redfield down in Grovetown a few days later was Henri Beach.
Beach was mistaken released from jail after his Dec. 6 arrest with Patterson, Turner and Labord, Richmond County Sheriff Investigator Steve Brown testified Wednesday.
Defense attorney Danny Durham asked the judge to delay ruling on the probation revocation for 30 days to give him time to go over the case with Patterson.
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Patterson has a defense to the newest charges, Durham said. Beach has signed an affidavit saying all of the drugs found Dec. 6 belonged to him.
Beach did the affidavit for Turner’s defense attorney. Sheriff investigators believe Turner is a leader of the LOE gang, Investigator Stefan Hegg testified Wednesday.
Beach is back in jail now, too, on the Dec. 6 charges, as well as new charges filed after his arrest with Antoine Redfield.
Redfield, 21, could have been in jail on his own probation violation warrants this month, like Patterson. But after murder charges against him were dropped in November, a supervising officer with the Department of Community Supervision authorized the jail to release him from custody.
Redfield had been in jail since the Dec. 7, 2019, shootout in the parking lot of the Private I Sports and Entertainment Complex on Thomas Lane that left two men dead, Charles E. Lawson III, 28, and JaBrie S. Dominguez, 23. District Attorney Jared Williams referenced that shooting as gang related. The murder charges against Redfield and a second man were dropped because each’s claim of self defense couldn’t be disproven, Williams said in a new release.
On Wednesday, Wright granted Patterson’s attorney a 30-day delay in deciding Patterson’s fate on the probation violation warrants.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
