Latest Cop City Indictment Drags Former RICO Defendants into New Legal Battle

Cobb County, GA — Attorney General Chris Carr has charged three people for a protest that took place nearly four years ago during the movement to stop Cop City in Atlanta. That’s according to a new grand jury indictment announced on April 23, which accuses the activists of property destruction and arson.

The charges are the latest in a years-long saga that has seen the state try, and fail, repeatedly to convict protesters and activists who organized against the city’s now finished $190 million police training complex.

All three of the people named in the latest indictment were previously charged as part of a wide-reaching conspiracy case wherein the state attempted to prosecute opponents of the police training facility as a criminal conspiracy. The Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization, or RICO, charges brought against 61 activists were dismissed earlier this year when a judge ruled Carr lacked the authority to bring the charges without permission from the Governor.

But in late April, three of the 61 people named in that 2023 indictment were charged with new crimes in an overtly political move by the state’s legal representative. Last month, Republican Attorney General Chris Carr announced the charges had been filed as part of his commitment to “fighting Antifa.”

Hannah Kass was shocked, if not surprised, when she heard her name mentioned during a press conference Carr held to announce the indictment. Though the RICO charges were dismissed, and Kass was hopeful the ordeal was over, she was braced for more backlash from Georgia’s courts.

“I sort of had a gut feeling that it wasn’t over,” she told Unicorn Riot.

A recent Ph.D. graduate, Dr. Kass has long been entangled in legal battles in Georgia. For three years she’s been subjected to court hearings, delayed trials, and the threat of long prison sentences if convicted as one of the dozens named in the state’s RICO case that attempted to portray activists as domestic terrorists.

Since 2023 she’s had to balance school, work, and other responsibilities while living under the persistent threat of being convicted for domestic terrorism.

But even without a conviction Kass has felt the impacts of being labeled as a domestic terrorist — the fear and trauma of the day she was arrested hang heavy on her day-to-day life, and she worries these drawn-out legal battles may impact her ability to find work and lead a regular life moving forward, she said.

The latest indictment says Kass and others participating in a protest outside the office of Brasfield & Gorrie, the contracting company that oversaw much of the construction for Cop City, spray painted a building, damaged a fence and set some shrubs on fire. Carr has accused Kass and two codefendants of two counts of criminal damage to property and arson.

Brasfield & Gorrie and its leadership were frequent targets for activists organizing against the project. Opponents regularly showed up at the company’s offices and worksites demanding that they drop the contract the city had granted them to oversee Cop City’s construction.

Fireworks and other noisemakers, alongside chanting, yelling and speaker systems, were common at these events. On May 12, 2022, a crowd rallied outside the company’s regional office in Smyrna, Georgia with these same tactics.

Some shot fireworks toward the building while others spray painted their opposition to Cop City on the office’s concrete facade. After a short rally, the crowd left. But in the process five people were arrested. They were originally charged with Riot, Criminal Damage to Property, and Terroristic Threats and Acts, among other offenses.

Three of those arrested were indicted by a grand jury in April, days before the statute of limitations would have expired. The indictment accusesKass, alongside Katie Kloth, Tyler Norman of two counts of Criminal Damage to Property and Arson of Lands. If convicted on all counts, each defendant could face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of as much as $10,000.

A warrant for her May 2022 arrest claims that Kass was seen on cell phone and surveillance video footage “facilitat[ing] the group to spray paint” messages on the building. Kass is also accused of not personally causing a disturbance, but being part of a group that caused a “violent disturbance” and “assisting in shooting off roman candles” near the office, apparently setting some grass on fire. Hannah’s “group” further damaged property by throwing paint bombs at some of the windows of the building, the warrant claims.

For her part, Kass isn’t convinced that the property damage is the point of the indictments.

“The Attorney General is still gunning for election as governor in the primary in May” Kass pointed out. “He needed his political win,” she said, speculating that the defeat he and his office have faced in prosecuting other Cop City cases has prompted him to keep trying to convict activists and organizers under the banner of “Antifa.”

Kass’s lawyer Amith Gupta agrees that Carr’s politics likely play a part in his office bringing the new indictment.

“While I cannot opine on Mr. Carr’s personal motives I believe his dramatic press conference and his fear-mongering rhetoric confirm that the case is politically motivated,” Gupta told Unicorn Riot.

But despite the Attorney General’s bluster, Gupta believes the case won’t succeed.

“I am confident that a fair jury will agree with our perspective that Dr. Kass committed no crime,” he added.

Judge Sonja Brown will oversee the case in Cobb Superior Court.