ATLANTA: A former PR consultant for Ralph David Abernathy III, the former state Senator whose father headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference following Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, has become involved in what one onlooker described as a ’political witch-hunt.’
ATLANTA: A former PR consultant for Ralph David Abernathy III, the
former state Senator whose father headed the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference following Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, has
become involved in what one onlooker described as a ’political
witch-hunt.’
According to an October 1 Gannett News Service article, PR consultant
Zee Bradford secretly recorded a conversation with Abernathy at the
request of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In the recording,
Abernathy asks Bradford to lie and say she had received dollars 2,700
from him for PR services while he was in the legislature.
Bradford could not be reached for comment.
Abernathy was also accused of forging names on expense reports and
wrongly keeping money while in office. He countered that he was being
targeted for political reasons, and the eventual result was a
mistrial.
’The jury agreed that the recording was not indicative of guilt,’ said
defense attorney Jeffrey Rothman. ’He was telling her to lie to the
press so they would leave her alone.’
’It’s very hard to believe there was any problem with proof,’ responded
Daryl Robinson, deputy counsel to Attorney General Thurbert Baker. ’We
had strong evidence for the first trial, and we’ll have strong evidence
again. They can put any spin on it they like, but it’s not what the
evidence played out at court showed.’ Robinson said that there will be a
retrial, although a date has not yet been set.
In addition to the dollars 2,700, Abernathy is accused of cheating the
state out of more than dollars 13,000 in Senate expense money. Abernathy
was also fined two years ago for trying to smuggle marijuana through the
Atlanta airport.
He was also denied the chance to seek re-election to the state Senate
when a check for his dollars 400 qualifying fee bounced last year
