Ed Kramer’s attorney and Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter have negotiated an agreement that has allowed Kramer to get out of jail and return to living under house arrest while his criminal case and another investigation proceed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the story: “DragonCon co-founder provides Gwinnett hacking data, gets out of jail”
The deal is contingent upon Kramer paying a $25,000 bond; agreeing to drop his recent efforts to have Porter removed from prosecution of his criminal case; and continuing to cooperate in the GBI’s investigation into the strange hacking scandal in which he, Porter and a superior court judge are key players.
Kramer goes home, and DA Porter reduces the flow of harassing paperwork:
Kramer has a history of health problems, is confined to a wheelchair and generally relies on oxygen tanks to help his breathing. He also has a history of inundating officials with complaints while incarcerated.
According to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kramer filed nearly 50 “pre-grievances” during the first two months at the Gwinnett County jail after his Feb. 26 arrest for allegedly taking a photo of a 7-year-old boy at a doctor’s office.
The GBI investigation, requested by Porter, became public knowledge after Kramer’s attorney revealed in a court motion that Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Kathryn Schrader had hired private investigator T.J. Ward last February to see if someone was hacking into her computer, and Ward had used Ed Kramer as his computer forensic analyst. The motion also claimed Porter was doing the hacking.
Not only did the judge know about Kramer, but she was in phone contact with him. She has since been barred from hearing criminal matters involving DA Porter for 60 days says the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Kathryn Schrader is reportedly not allowed to hear any cases prosecuted by Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter’s office for at least the next two months while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation sorts out a complicated dispute between the two public officials.
Porter confirmed news reports that a visiting Fulton County judge issued the ruling barring Schrader from presiding over cases for 60 days during a hearing Thursday.
The ruling stems from an unusual case in which Schrader accused Porter of hacking her work computer, and he in turn raised concerns that the county’s computer network may have been compromised. He then asked that she recuse herself from any cases his office is prosecuting.
The order will be revisited at the end of the 60-day period, when Senior Judge John Goger hopes there will be more answers from the GBI.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution story says that Kramer is at risk of the court revisiting the sentence it imposed when Kramer pleaded on child molestation charges in 2013:
Kramer was first charged with inappropriately touching young boys in 2000. Thanks to legal maneuvering and his health concerns, he avoided prosecution until 2013, when he entered a negotiated plea to child molestation and was sentenced to serve almost three years on house arrest and 15 more on probation.
The house arrest portion was already completed before his most recent arrest. But in addition to facing new charges — misdemeanors handled by the Gwinnett solicitor’s office — Kramer could also be found in violation of his probation.
That could dramatically change his original sentence. Because Kramer was sentenced under Georgia’s First Time Offender Act, a judge could ignore the previously negotiated plea and send Kramer to prison for decades.
[Thanks to Nancy Collins for the story.]
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Good grief.
This entire epic. I wouldn’t accept it if it were the plot of a mystery novel, and I cannot believe that Kramer is still playing the Gwinnett authorities like a fiddle.
If a judge does sentence him to hard prison time, the motions claiming that incarcerating Kramer in his current state of health would violate the 8th Amendment. He’s going to die in his own bed. Because Gwinnett county can’t find thgeir ass with both hands and a tour guide.
Once he gets sent to the penitentiary he’ll no longer be Gwinnett County’s problem, but the state’s. But it’s obvious why he was so blatant in his stalking of that child earlier this year–he thought he had a judge in his pocket.
A somewhat bigger problem for Gwinnett County is that if Porter goes down, it opens every case that he has prosecuted up to question…
Porter isn’t going anywhere. The judge really does seem to be mentally impaired, as she was caught secretly recording conversations with him and other county officials at a meeting. I predict she will take a permanent leave of absence for medical reasons (she had previously suffered a stroke and this may very well be a side effect ) and step down from the bench–or will be forced to do so. There is literally *no* reason for this DA or any other to hack her computer. However, her own cases over the last few years–she handled primarily drug arrests–will be up for review, if they aren’t already.