East Cobb Courts & Trials

Former East Cobb attorney indicted for wire fraud, identity theft

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Chalmer E. “Chuck” Detling II, a former East Cobb attorney, has been indicted for allegedly obtaining fraudulent litigation advances from clients and keeping the money for himself.Chuck Detling, East Cobb attorney indicted

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, Detling was indicted by a federal grand jury last Wednesday of seven counts of wire fraud and eight counts of aggressive identity theft. He was arraigned on Friday in federal magistrate court.

Federal prosecutors contend he used “the identities of 36 former clients without their knowledge or authorization in order to apply for and obtain 50 fraudulent litigation advances, totaling hundreds of thousands dollars.”

Detling operated the Detling Law Group at 3020 Roswell Road from 2012-2016. According to a 2015 advertorial in the EAST COBBER magazine, Detling also used the same office for the East Cobb Mediation service for divorce and elder care settlements.

Personal injury and workers’ compensation lawyers occasionally obtain litigation advances from clients for non-ligitation expenses while their cases are pending.

Atlanta U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak alleged that between October 2014 and April 2016, Detling obtained personal financial information from clients without their knowledge or permission to apply for the advances, collecting $383,000.

Prosecutors say instead of forwarding the money to clients, Detling picked up checks himself or had money for the advances wired instead to his law firm’s account.

When making the financing applications, prosecutors allege, Detling provided fake phone numbers and e-mail addresses. They also claim he submitted documents for the financing that allegedly included signatures by his clients whom he knew “had not actually executed the agreements.”

Prosectors say litigation financing entities didn’t require the clients to be present when submitting the applications or when the advances were made.

“Lawyers are supposed to assist their clients, not use their identities to commit fraud.” Pak said in a statement. “Detling allegedly violated his ethical and fiduciary duties by using his clients’ personal information to apply for litigation advances in their names.”

Detling, who was admitted to the state bar in 2004, surrendered his license in October 2016 and is no longer allowed to practice law in Georgia.

In 2012, Detling was fined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after admitting that he helped conceal a federal fraud indictment against a former client who was pursuing a municipal bond issue to purchase a casket company.

Detling also failed to disclose a $200,000 loan he made to the client, and was reprimanded by the State Bar of Georgia.

The FBI is continuing to investigate the wire fraud and identity theft case against Detling, along with the state bar, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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Man who robbed sailor and left him naked near Bells Ferry Road gets 25-year sentence

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An Atlanta man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for robbing a Navy sailor after an evening at a Marietta nightclub two years ago, pistol-whipping him and leaving him naked near Bells Ferry Road.Cortlyn Javon Martin, man who robbed sailor in Cobb

Cortlyn Javon Martin, 26, was convicted by a Cobb jury in June of armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.

On Thursday, he was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Lark Ingram.

Martin was a patron at the Club Rio, near the South Marietta Parkway and Franklin Gateway, on June 18, 2016, when he left the club with the sailor and other men by car, according to the Cobb District Attorney’s office.

The sailor was driving when Martin, sitting in the back seat, began pistol-whipping him, the DA’s office said, adding that Martin robbed the driver after forcing him to withdraw $500 from a bank ATM in Kennesaw.

The DA’s office said Martin then forced the victim to strip naked, and left him near Bells Ferry Road.

Martin, who was arrested two months after the incident, will be credited for the two years he has been in custody, according to the DA’s office.

“This defendant preyed upon an active-duty military member who was visiting Georgia for the first time on military leave,” assistant Cobb district attorney Kaitlin Southmayd said in a statement. “We are thankful for our victim’s service to his country and his willingness to tell his terrifying account to the jury.”

 

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Man convicted of serial Cobb rapes sentenced to life in 1986 cold cases

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A judge has sentenced a man found guilty of serial Cobb rapes 32 years ago.Cobb serial rapist, Anthony Ledell Brooks

Antonio Ledell Brooks, now 48, was found guilty by a Cobb Superior Court jury on Friday and was given two consecutive life terms plus 20 years by Judge Gregory Poole, according to the Cobb District Attorney’s Office.

Brooks was convicted on two counts each of rape, aggravated assault and false imprisonment and one count of burglary.

According to information released by the DA’s office, the first victim, who was 24 years old at the time, was attacked on Sept. 1, 1986 at a Franklin Road apartment by a man wielding a knife.

A few days later, another woman, aged 23 then and living a block away at another apartment on Franklin Road was raped and severely beaten, according to prosecutors. They said both women were treated at Kennestone Hospital, where their rape kits were collected, but no suspects were identified.

On an unspecified date in 1988, another young woman was raped at an apartment on Powers Ferry Place, off Delk Road and near Powers Ferry Road, the DA’s office said. The woman told police she later saw the same man at her complex and identified him, leading to Brooks’ conviction in that case, the DA’s office said.

It was that conviction that led to the resolution of the Franklin Road rapes, according to prosecutors, a cold case investigation more than 20 years in the making.

In 2008, Georgia Department of Corrections collected Brooks’ DNA and sent it to the GBI for entry in the federal CODIS, or DNA, database.

Five years later, in 2013, the Marietta Police Department asked the GBI Crime Lab to analyze DNA from the 1986 rapes on Franklin Road.

The Cobb DA’s office said the GBI reported an initial match in those kits to Brooks, then took new swabs of Brooks’ DNA and confirmed the matches.

He was put on trial this week, and found guilty after two hours of jury deliberation, the Cobb DA’s office said.

“What happened to these women is every person’s nightmare and despite the passage of over 30 years, justice was served today,” said Cobb assistant district attorney Courtney Veal in a statement. “The defendant has forfeited his right to live in a free society, and the judge’s sentence should ensure that he can never victimize again.”

 

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Woman who ran holistic clinic on Johnson Ferry Road gets 75 months for fraud

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A woman federal prosecutors say was not a licensed naturopathic doctor but claimed to be was sentenced to more than six years in prison today after operating a string of holistic medical practices that included a clinic on Johnson Ferry Road.

Isabel Kesari Gervais, 61, received a 75-month sentence from a federal judge in Birmingham. She pleaded guilty last summer to wire fraud, identity theft and making false statements. As part of her sentence, she also must forfeit $108,146 in proceeds from that illegal activity, according to a release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for North Alabama.

While the charges stemmed from a case in Alabama, Gervais also ran naturopathic clinics in Arkansas, Kansas and Georgia over the last 15 years. Federal prosecutors said that in addition to defrauding patients, she also changed her identity numerous times and ran advertisements making claims for medical services she was not licensed to offer, including cancer treatment.

From 2004 and 2008, Gervais ran The Chiron Clinic at 1000 Johnson Ferry Road, across from Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. According to a federal sentencing memo, Gervais, who went by the name Debrah Lynn Goodman at the time, fell behind on her rent at the East Cobb business in 2005, and in February and March of that year, “the leasing company began seriously demanding payment.”

The memo said she legally changed her name to Isabell Gervais in April 2005 and left for Alabama following a divorce.

She returned to Georgia in 2009 to open a clinic in the Cumberland area, the same year a local magazine ad carried the headline “Dr. Isabell Heals Mind, Body and Spirit in East Cobb.”

She moved to Arkansas and Kansas before relocating again to the Birmingham area in 2015. That’s where she started a clinic promising medical services to cancer patients, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office there, although she wasn’t licensed to practice medicine.

Prosecutors said received payment from a woman seeking cancer treatment, but did not provide the needed medical services. With other patients, they said she conducted a few tests and wrote out a few prescriptions, and “through her misrepresentations about licensure and qualifications, fraudulently induced patients to pay her thousands of dollars.”

Prosecutors said during her 15-year spree, Gervais changed personal names, business names, medical practices and abandoned rental properties, all in an effort “to avoid legal action and detection.”

“The word ‘doctor’ means something,” assistant U.S. attorney Erica Barnes Williamson said in the sentencing order. “Diplomas on a wall signal something. Licensure, references in publications, and referrals are important. As a society, we rely on these things to determine who to trust with our health and with our money. The court must send the message that it is not okay to simply make it all up.”

 

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Northeast Cobb man sentenced to life in prison for stabbing his wife to death

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A Northeast Cobb man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing his wife last year, the Cobb District Attorney’s Office said. Donny Eaton, Northeast Cobb man sentenced

Donny Eaton, 65, entered the plea on Monday, when jury selection for his trial was expected to begin. The negotiated deal was accepted by Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley, who handed down the sentence.

He was charged with malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Eaton was arrested on April 4, 2017 after Roxane Tenore Eaton, 66, was found with what the Cobb DA said were “countless” stab wounds about her face and neck at their home on Liberty Hill Road.

According to the DA’s office, Eaton initially cut her throat with a pocket knife. Tenore Eaton had purchased a home in Florida where she wanted the couple to live to be closer to family, but he was opposed to the move.

After the stabbings, Eaton visited his mother’s grave in Floyd County, and confessed to emergency dispatchers there that he had stabbed his wife, the Cobb DA said. A welfare check was made at the Eaton home, where Tenore Eaton was found, and he turned himself into the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Cobb DA.

“Donny Eaton took the life of his wife in a gruesome manner, with it appearing that he was attempting to decapitate her, all because she wanted to be closer to her children and grandchildren in Florida to live out the remainder of their lives,” Cobb senior assistant district attorney Patricia Hull said in a statement. “Donny Eaton refused to leave their home in Georgia. If he couldn’t have her here with him in Georgia, he didn’t want her children to have her, either.”

 

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