Episode Details

On the Wednesday, Sept. 18 edition of Georgia Today: A trio of bail fund administrators have the money laundering charges against them dropped; candidates for Chatham County district attorney clash at a forum in Savannah; and the Atlanta Botanical Garden celebrates the blooming of four rare African corpse flowers.

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Wednesday, Sept. 18. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, a trio of bail fund administrators have the money laundering charges against them dropped. Candidates for Chatham County District Attorney clash at a forum in Savannah. And the Atlanta Botanical Garden celebrates the blooming of four rare African corpse flowers. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: State prosecutors have dropped some charges against three people indicted in connection with protests against a police and firefighter training center being built in Atlanta. The three were charged with money laundering and charity fraud as part of a sweeping prosecution against 61 activists. Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson coordinated legal aid for those arrested. Civil rights groups called their indictment a heavy-handed effort to silence a political movement. It's unclear why the state attorney general's office dropped the charges, but they and 58 others still face racketeering charges. Meanwhile, city officials expect the training center to open in December.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: The two candidates for district attorney in Savannah's Chatham County clashed over their experiences but agreed on Georgia's abortion ban in a forum this week. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.

Benjamin Payne: Democratic incumbent Shalena Cook Jones told a new program she began since taking office in 2021.

Shalena Cook Jones: We've started a conviction integrity unit and a cold case unit and have successfully prosecuted 20-year-old cases. I'm proud of that, because what that shows is that we never give up on justice.

Benjamin Payne: She criticized Republican challenger Andre Pretorius, who serves as an assistant DA in Effingham County for only being experienced in prosecuting misdemeanors. Pretorius criticized Cook Jones for dismissing many backlogged cases.

Andre Pretorius: I didn't want to run for DA, but now, when I heard what was going on in that office and I worried about the safety of my kids and the amount of mass shootings that happened, I want to be able to take my kids downtown.

Benjamin Payne: Both candidates said they would not prosecute cases under Georgia's six-week abortion ban. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne in Savannah.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Global food and agriculture firm Cargill has chosen an Atlanta technology hub as the location for a new office expected to employ about 400 people. The company said in June that it would establish a new tech and engineering center in Atlanta. Cargill confirmed today that it's subleasing space in Georgia Tech's Technology Square.

Caption

Maya Peters-Greno uses a small brush to clean the grime away from a recently recovered headstone in the Penfield African American Cemetery in Greene County.

Credit: Grant Blankenship/GPB News

Story 4:

Peter Biello: A relatively newly reme