First Donald Trump defendant agrees to testify after taking deal in RICO case
The first Trump defendant in the Rico case involving election interference took a plea deal, which could signal trouble for the former president.
Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, entered into a plea deal with the prosecution on Friday, making him the first defendant in the Fulton County election interference case to do so.
Hall entered a plea of guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiring to engage in deliberate interference with the performance of election duties during a hastily scheduled hearing before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.
Hall consented to a summons to testify, five years of probation, a $5000 fine, 200 hours of community service, and a prohibition on activities related to polling and election management.
Donald Trump's request to have his trial separate from his co-defendants was denied (Getty Images)He also agreed to write a letter of apology to Georgia voters and recorded a statement for prosecutors. Last month, he was charged in connection with the unauthorized access to private voter information in Coffee County on January 7, 2021. Racketeering and six felony counts of conspiracy were brought against him.
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The deal is a win for the prosecution, who is gearing up for at least two trials involving the current 18 defendants. On October 20, jury selection will start for the case involving the first two defendants, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.
Powell and Cheseboro will have their trials separate from the other 17 conspirators (FULTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE/A)This comes after Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ordered that Powell and Cheseboro's trials be separate from the other 17 defendants. He denied the two's request to have their trials separate from each other.
He said his decision "is simply a procedural and logistical inevitability." In his ruling he wrote: "beginning with the logistical concerns, the Fulton County Courthouse simply contains no courtroom adequately large enough to hold all 19 defendants, their multiple attorneys and support staff, the sheriff's deputies, court personnel, and the State's prosecutorial team. Relocating to another larger venue raises security concerns that cannot be rapidly addressed."
Scott also used the prospective duration of the trials as a factor in the decision. He speculated that it could last as long as four months given the magnitude and 150 witnesses.
"We must consider the ripple effects of a monthslong, multi-defendant trial on the local criminal justice system, sidelining dozens of defense counsel from handling other cases and preventing this Court — and quite likely most colleagues — from managing the rest of the docket," the judge said.
Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, had urged that all 19 defendants should be prosecuted concurrently and had written in a court document that it would be viable to do so.
She argued that breaking the case up into several lengthy trials would strain the resources of Fulton County's Superior Court
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