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Barrow 4 Journal www.BarrowJournal.com Or Read all over... Wednesday, November 19,2008 Vol. 1 No. 4 22 PAGES 2 SECTIONS A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680 25c COPY — Inside — Area news: • Barrow March of Dimes holds kickoff lun cheon page 3A • Barrow juniors improve on writing test page 3A Opinions: •It's never too early to think about 2012 page 4A Sports: •Wildcats fall to Rome in state playoffs page 3B •WBHS Swimdoggs dive into new season page 6B Other News: •School News pages 8B •Public Safety pages 6-7A •Church News page 10A •Obituaries page 11A Developer’s Hwy. 211 lawsuit tossed Judge says lawyers acted in manner to defraud the court ’ Barrow County Judge David Motes has dismissed a 2007 lawsuit filed against the Town of Braselton by the developers of a high profile com mercial project in Barrow County on Hwy. 211, saying the develop er’s lawyers had engaged in judicial “misconduct.” Motes dismissed the lawsuit last month after lawyers for Century Center at Braselton failed to pay $18,000 in attorney fees to the Town of Braselton. The judge ruled in July that lawyers Barry Armstrong and Jeremy Moeser, had “knowingly and willfully present an inaccurate and false survey to the Court in an effort to defraud the Court and to subvert justice and to gain an unfair advan tage in the case.” Saying the lawyers also used “sleight of hand” in eliciting testimo ny from one witness, Motes ordered in July the payment of fees to the city by the developers. But the fees were never paid by Century Center or its affiliate firms, leading to the October dismissal of the case. Century Center at Braselton, which is located on Hwy. 211 at Beaver Dam Road just south of the 1-85 interchange, is owned by Dick and Chris Gray. continued on page 8A CENTER OF LAWSUIT Century Center at Braselton is located on Ga. Hwy. 211 in Barrow County. The project will include high- end retail and office space on 26 acres. Firefighters stay busy in Barrow TOUGH BATTLE Barrow County firefighters had a difficult time with this blaze Friday on McCully Drive due to absence of fire hydrants near the residence. Firefighters had to shuttle water to fight the blaze, which caused an extensive operation to bring it under control, fire officials said. The resident was not at home at the time of the fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation. For other fire and public safety reports, see articles starting on Page 6A. Photo by Lt. Scott Dakin/Barrow County Fire and Emergency Services Two AHS students arrested Separate incidents involve gang activity, fighting with asst, principal DA defends videotaping by police BY SUSAN NORMAN Did officials for the Winder Police Department secretly record a meet ing between a lawyer and his client on orders from an Assistant District Attorney? That was the issue at a court hearing Tuesday in Barrow County Superior Court in a case against a Winder man facing child pornography charges. Defense attorney Seth Kirschenbaum filed a motion last month to sup press the videotape, which he said had been done by the WPD on the orders of ADA Mary Beth Wolff. But the motion was with drawn Tuesday and no tes timony on the matter was heard in open court before Judge Joe Booth. Both Wolff and Kirschenbaum did hold some whispered conversation with Booth at the judge’s bench during the hearing, but it wasn’t clear if that was about this issue, or another defense motion being heard on the case. Wolff said after the hearing that she was “not involved” in the vide otaping and that was why Kirschenbaum had with drawn the motion. “I don’t make a prac tice of any such thing,” she said in a brief interview following the hearing. The continued on page 8A Journal sets early deadlines Due to an early pro duction schedule the week of Thanksgiving, the deadline for sub mitting church, social and school news to the Barrow Journal will be 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21. Any items received after the deadline may not be published. Community news items may be emailed to smobley@ barrowjournal.com or faxed to 678-425-1435. The Friday deadline also applies to letters to the editor and classified ads. The Barrow Journal office at 77 E. May St. in Winder will be closed Thursday. Nov. 27. but will reopen Friday, Nov. 28. BY SUSAN NORMAN Two Apalachee High School students were arrest ed last week, one for threat ening to kill a fellow student and the other for manhan dling an assistant principal. On Nov. 12, a 16-year-old student was charged with making terroristic threats and with being involved in a “criminal street gang.” The youth allegedly threatened to shoot a 16-year-old girl the previous day. The next day, according to a Barrow County Sheriff’s deputy’s report of the inci dent, the boy’s sister had been feuding for some time with a 16-year-old girl. Just after school on Nov. 11, the victim was telling her school bus driver about the feud, when the boy walked up and made the first of two verbal threats. He allegedly said, “Oh, I’m tired of you and you need to stop talking before I run up on that bus and shoot you. I’m crazy. You don’t want me to do it.” Another male student took the girl to the back of the bus and encouraged her to calm down. But she and the accused began to argue again when their two buses arrived at Haymon Morris Middle School, the report states. During their argument, the youth said he was going to the girl’s house and “shoot her.” The following day, Deputy Jeffery Yoder, the school resource officer, learned that the youth has a MySpace page with photographs of himself holding guns. The deputy was told that a gun that had been brought to a football game came from the suspect’s house. The suspect’s MySpace page showed a background displaying a “bloods gang” layout. It also had a photo graph of the suspect wearing a red bandana over his face with the caption “lil killa.” “There was also a ‘Keepin it Gangsta Bloods’ photo graph with several of (his) friends including his sister, (name removed) flashing gang signs,” the incident report states. Other photographs showed the youth “wearing a red bandana and red pants with a handgun tucked in the front of his waist band.” The youth also was “flash ing gang signs” and “hold ing up what appeared to be two shotguns,” the report states. Still other photo graphs included handguns with the caption “T.B.C.,” which stands for “Tanner Bridge Click,” a gang that has been identified by the Barrow County Sheriff’s office as a criminal street gang, the report states. The youth was using the MySpace page “for the sole purpose of intimidation,” the deputy wrote. The deputy then arrested the youth and turned him over to the custody of his parents. The deputy told the teen’s father to make sure all weapons in the home were secure and to expect con tact by the Department of Juvenile Justice personnel about the placement of a leg monitor on his son. FIGHT WITH PRINCIPAL In an unrelated incident at AHS on Nov. 13, Pierrelande “Landy” Jean, 18, Winder, was charged with disorderly conduct after a violent strug gle with Assistant Principal Dorann Mansberger, who had stopped her fighting with a younger female stu dent in the cafeteria. Deputy Yoder observed the incident on video record ed by school surveillance equipment. continued on page 8A Auburn couple shot while sleeping Both expected to recover BY SUSAN NORMAN An unknown assailant early Saturday fired a gun through the wall of a Parks Mill Road apart ment and wounded a man and woman asleep in their bed. Lt. Lee Lapsky, commander of the Auburn Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, said that Kathy Lynn McCallister, 35, was wounded seven times. Michael John Borg, 54, was hit once. “She was struck four times on the legs and three times on the upper torso,” Lapsky said. “He was wounded in the lower abdo men area.” Both victims were transport ed by ambulance to Gwinnett Medical Center, where each has since undergone surgery. They are expected to recover because the shooter used a small-caliber gun. continued on page 8A Body still not ID’d BY SUSAN NORMAN The Barrow County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations are investigat ing the death of an unidentified person whose badly decomposed body was discovered Sunday evening behind a vacant house near Statham. According to some news reports, the victim was male and had been shot and his body burned. However, Barrow County Coroner David Crosby would not confirm that information Wednesday morning. continued on page 8A BODY DISCOVERED A body was discovered behind this vacant house on Atlanta Highway. Photo by Susan Norman