Wednesday, April 2, 2003
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Wednesday, April 2, 2003 |
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Gadfly gets hard time By JOHN MUNFORD Kicking the bucket will cost an elderly Fayette man five years in prison, after he was found guilty last week of damaging a sink and toilet in his county jail cell. Anthony J. Carter, a perennial gadfly familiar to many in Fayette government positions for the past two decades, was sentenced to five years in prison by Superior Court Judge Christopher C. Edwards. A Fayette jury returned the guilty verdict for interference with government property and obstruction of a police officer. Jail personnel testified during the trial that Carter kicked his cell's sink off the wall and forced the toilet to overflow by sticking his foot in the device and flushing it. Jailer Richard Hancock testified that Carter's toe was bleeding when he arrived on the scene and that the jail's head nurse examined the injury. Detention officer Jamie Hart testified that Carter managed to flood the cell in about two inches of water. Carter maintained he was innocent and that the toilet had already become detached from the wall before the incident occurred. Carter, a former mechanic with the now-defunct Eastern Air Lines, has had a running feud with county government for more than a decade. At one point he was even charged with practicing law without a license by an irked judge. Carter had previously been convicted of violating several county development ordinances. A jury ruled that Carter installed a water line that was not up to code, that he improperly installed a sewage disposal system and he performed excavation work on his property without a land disturbance permit. In those earlier run-ins with the law, he was also found guilty of violating a stop work order on the property after continuing to excavate without a permit. State Court Judge Fletcher Sams sentenced Carter to a $1,000 fine and 300 days in jail for the ordinance violations. Carter was serving that sentence when the current altercation occurred, leading to the 5-year prison term.
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