Tyrone attorney Rudjard Hayes, running against incumbent Scott Ballard for the position of district attorney in the Griffin Judicial Circuit, is criticizing Ballard for being soft on defendants accused of child molestation.

Ballard, meanwhile, rejects that characterization and contends that Hayes put “a large number” of child molestation cases in jeopardy in May 2007 by resigning days before the grand jury was to meet with the cases “not ready to be indicted.”

Hayes says that’s simply not true and that he had done all the work he could on each of those cases, leaving notes in each case file of its progress. Hayes pointed out he was the only attorney in the DA’s Griffin office who was handling child molestation cases.

In a letter to the editor in today’s paper, Hayes bashes Ballard for testifying on behalf of a local man, Jeffrey David Allen, in a court hearing in south Georgia on whether his probation from a child molestation case from there would be revoked.

“I would never testify on behalf of a child molester, regardless of the date of the conviction,” Hayes wrote in the letter.

Allen pleaded guilty in May 1990 to sexually molesting five female students and trying to kiss two others, all under the age of 14, according to the Decatur County, Ga. clerk of court’s office.

He received 40 years probation and a $5,000 fine as part of a negotiated plea deal. He was also banned from the county and ordered not to teach girls under 17 years old, clerk officials said.

Ballard told The Citizen Tuesday that as an officer of the court, he had the duty to inform it of Allen’s problems being chiefly related to alcohol, even if he was Fayette’s top elected prosecutor at the time.

Ballard said he did not ask the court for leniency for Allen, who he had previously represented in an unrelated case in Fayette County. Ballard said he knew Allen primarily because Allen was in his prayer group at church.

In a transcript of Ballard’s testimony in the hearing, Ballard told the court that in the past while Allen had been treated for sexual-related issues, he felt they had “missed” the real root of Allen’s problem: alcohol.

According to the transcript, Allen’s attorney asked Ballard if he thought Allen was “a salvageable individual or incorrigible?”

Ballard replied: “I think he’s a fine fellow who has got a drinking problem that gets him in trouble. He makes terrible decisions and does terrible things when he drinks, but he is an outstanding guy, Judge. He is worth taking a chance on.”

Allen was arrested on the probation violation charge after he fought with Fayetteville police officers who were investigating a cab driver’s report that Allen had failed to pay his bill. At the time Allen was charged in Fayetteville with resisting a police officer, disorderly conduct and giving a false name to a police officer.

Ultimately the judge in the case revoked Allen’s probation and he remains in prison, Ballard said.

Ballard said Allen’s defense attorney at the time had called him before having the subpoena served on him June 10, 2005, four days before the hearing. Ballard added that the person who served the subpoena didn’t file their affidavit on the matter until two days after the hearing.

The subpoena, Ballard said, was legitimate, despite assertions from his opponent that he was not subpoenaed at all.

Hayes also criticizes Ballard for allowing what he called “extremely lenient treatment” in a recent child molestation case involving two women engaging in sexual conduct in the presence of a young child while two men encouraged the activity.

Hayes points out that the two women pled to cruelty to children and each got one year probation and both were sentenced to a diversion center instead of prison: one for 60 days and the other for 90 days. The Peachtree City case included photographic evidence of the exploits, Hayes pointed out.

Hayes also said that one of the men pled guilty to cruelty to children and got a five-year prison sentence and the other also pled to child cruelty but got five years probation and 120 days in a diversion center.

Ballard said he didn’t want to go into detail about the case because it might help criminals or divulge sensitive information about the victims. He did say that prosecutors ran into evidentiary problems in the case “and it was more appropriate to charge them with cruelty to children” than with child molestation.

“That was a unique case with evidentiary issues that you don’t normally have in a child molestation case,” Ballard said.

Hayes also criticizes Ballard for dismissing several cases against people for lying on affidavits to get their children into Fayette County schools.

“This trend is extremely dangerous in light of the fact that the state’s largest failing school system (Clayton County) is next door to this circuit,” Hayes wrote. “We must see aggressive prosecution of these cases, not merely statements that the DA ‘intends’ to prosecute these cases.”

Ballard said his office continues to work with school officials to address the issue.

“The Fayette County School System has reported that we have already saved the taxpayers around $2 million by our cooperative effort,” Ballard said. “And we’re getting better at rooting them out all the time.”

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