‘No one is above the law.’ DA Mark Jones’ felony trial over parking lot damage begins
“No one is above the law. Period.”
That’s what prosecutor Brian Patterson declared in his opening statement to jurors Monday in the felony trial of District Attorney Mark Jones, who with codefendant Erik Whittington is accused of damaging the Columbus Civic Center parking lot while filming a 2020 campaign ad.
The attorneys representing Jones and Whittington were quick to seize on that pronouncement, countering that apparently some people are above the law, because no one previously has been charged with a felony for leaving tire marks in a public parking lot riddled with them.
Jones and Whittington face charges of interfering with government property and first-degree criminal damage to property in the May 17, 2020, incident in which Jones shot a video encouraging people to vote, and engaged custom car enthusiasts to appear with him.
As the filming ended, Whittington was among the drivers who circled Jones and others while spinning his tires and “drifting,” leaving rings of burned rubber in the lot.
Patterson told jurors this endangered those Whittington circled, and ruined the paint on parking spaces in the lot, restriping work the city finished just months earlier. Jones never sought permission for this, the prosecutor said.
“Mr. Jones is a lawyer,” Patterson said, and should have known what he was doing was wrong. “Mark Jones knew better. He just didn’t care.”
‘Political hit job’
The city estimated the cost of repaving the entire lot at $309,000, a price authorities used initially to set the defendants’ bonds. The repair now is estimated at $2,500, Patterson said.
But the first engineer who examined the lot had a much less expensive estimate: $478, just to restripe the parking spaces, noted attorney Chris Breault, who represents Jones. He claimed city administrators kept pushing for a higher cost, to make the offense a felony.
City emails he obtained prove this, Breault said: “They did not care what the actual damage was. ... They made up a felony case.”
He called it “a calculated political hit job” born of fears that Jones’ viral video was shifting the momentum of the district attorney’s race, giving Jones an edge over incumbent Julia Slater. She lost to Jones in the Democratic Primary.
“Within four days, it had 100,000 views,” Breault said of the video posted to Facebook. That’s what prompted authorities to press the criminal case, he said.
“All of a sudden, they want to make Erik Whittington a felon. They want to make Mark Jones a felon,” he said.
The case against Jones was an attempt by those in power to damage Jones’ campaign, because he was an outspoken outsider they perceived as a threat to their interests, Breault said: “Mark is somebody who will speak out. He has made enemies.”
Representing Whittington, attorney William Kendrick told jurors that on Memorial Day weekend 2020, while his client was being held on $300,000 bond in this case, a woman charged with murder was released on $50,000 bond.
Whittington and others who joined in making the video never intended to commit a crime, he said. After receiving a group text inviting him to participate, Whittington believed he was filming a promotion that simply encouraged people to come out and vote.
Kendrick urged jurors to weigh these factors, and “concentrate on the truth of how this case came to be.”
What comes next
Opening statements ended shortly after 5 p.m. Monday. Visiting Judge Jeffery Monroe set the presentation of evidence to begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in an 11th floor Government Center courtroom.
It is not the only criminal case Jones now faces, as he was indicted last week for alleged misconduct in office, accusations that could lead to his losing his job in his first year as district attorney. He took office Jan. 4, having faced no Republican opposition in the November General Election.
Other suspects in the Civic Center case have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, leaving Jones and Whittington to face a trial that’s expected to last through the week.
To avoid local conflicts of interest, Monroe, a Superior Court judge from Macon, was chosen to preside, with Patterson, an attorney from Athens, assigned to represent the state.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 6:59 PM.