Georgia prosecutor David McDade has kept his villian status, handing out like lollypops copies of a video depicting underage teens and alleged perpetrators engaged in various sex acts.
Determined to keep one Black man on lockdown, the Douglas County D.A. didn't even have the decency to shield the identities or scramble the faces of the alleged victims.
McDade says Georgia’s open-records law leaves him no choice but to release the footage because it was evidence in one of the state’s most turbulent cases — that of Genarlow Wilson, a young brother serving 10 years in prison for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl.
McDade’s actions have opened him up to accusations that he is vindictively misusing his authority to keep Wilson behind bars — and worse, distributing child pornography.“This has been a ferocious, vindictive prosecution of Genarlow Wilson,” said state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat.
McDade has said that while the law required him to release the video, he also believes the footage helps his case — by showing that Wilson is not the squeaky-clean football star and honor student portrayed by his supporters.“Most of those who do not want people to see the tape know that it’s damning to their position.” McDade said.
He released the video after receiving an open records request from the AP, and said he has given it to about three dozen people, including reporters and lawmakers.
It shows Wilson, then 17, receiving oral sex from a young Black girl and having intercourse with another 17-year-old girl. It was shot at a 2003 New Year’s Eve Party at a hotel room by another partygoer.
Earlier this week, Georgia’s chief federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias, said the video “constitutes child pornography under federal law,” and he called on McDade to stop releasing copies.
Critics say that at the very least, McDade should have obscured the faces of the underage girls to conceal their identity, or sought a protective order to keep the material under seal.
You think???
Several Wilson supporters likened McDade to disgraced Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong and called on Georgia’s attorney general to investigate.
“Mike Nifong lost his license, and if he lost his license, then certainly a district attorney that distributes child pornography ought to be investigated,” the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, said Thursday.
State Sen. Emanuel Jones said he would introduce legislation to block district attorneys from handing over photographic images in sex cases.
Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with the 15-year-old girl. He has served more than two years of a mandatory 10-year sentence.A judge last month called Wilson’s sentence “a grave miscarriage of justice” and ordered him set free. But prosecutors are trying to block his release. The Georgia Supreme Court is set to hear the case next week.
McDade fought a bill in the Legislature earlier this year that would have helped Wilson. Some lawmakers who were on the fence changed their mind after seeing the tape.
Original story by Shannon McCaffrey (AP)/Skeptical Brotha