The Real Shawn LaGrua
by PV
Introduction
Rumors have it that when Governor Perdue’s recently appointed Atlanta Circuit Superior Court Judge Shawn LaGrua takes her oath of office in a few months, the life, liberty, and property of every single man, woman, and child that comes before her court will be put in serious jeopardy in her courtroom.
How can this be? Well…according to the evidence we are about to present, LaGrua appears to have quite the documented history of pathological and psychopathic behavior when it comes to her method of practicing the law.
But…let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves…let’s go back to somewhat of the beginning of LaGrua’s history in the practice of law.
The Early Years
We don’t actually know that much about LaGrua in her “formative” years of practicing law. She graduated from GSU Law, and was admitted to the bar in 1987.
According to the GSU Law Alumni Website, she “started her career as an assistant district attorney in Dekalb County and moved to the Fulton County DA’s Office where she became Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney. After working for the Tallapoosa DA’s Office and again for Dekalb’s, she was appointed in 2004 as Solicitor General for DeKalb County.”
LaGrua’s current “title” is “Inspector General” of the Secretary of State. And, the “Inspector General” is in quotes because according to the 2009 Georgia Department of Audits’ Report, a position by that title doesn’t actually exist in the Secretary of State’s office. LaGrua’s official job title is “Legal Services Officer.”
Now, that appointment to Solicitor General of DeKalb County in 2004 is when things started getting weird around Shawn LaGrua…
The Railroading of Guy Antonizzi
Just prior to being appointed to be DeKalb’s Solicitor General in July 2004, Shawn LaGrua worked as an Assistant DA for the DeKalb District Attorney’s office. Guy Antonizzi worked as an Investigator for the Solicitor’s Office under then-Solicitor General Gwen Keyes.
Before she officially took the position as Solicitor General on July 19, 2004, LaGrua had launched an un-authorized investigation into the “flex-work time schedule” of Guy Antonizzi. LaGrua hooked-up with Investigator Jason Hammer, whereupon they decided they could use DeKalb government property to perform stakeouts, tape Antonizzi, and just generally harrass the living crap out of him with ZERO authorization from their superiors, either the District Attorney or the Solicitor General before she took over as Solicitor.
In the end, LaGrua ended-up terminating Antonizzi and attempted to charge him with Theft-by-Taking, Theft-by-Deception, and Violation of Oath of Public Officer. That is when the case got turned over to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office by request of then-DeKalb DA Jeffrey Brickman.
The Fulton County DA’s Office found no such evidence beyond reasonable doubt of Antonizzi’s violations of ANY laws as accused by LaGrua. You are invited to read the entire sordid details of LaGrua’s no-probable-cause-of-any-type reasons uncovered by the Fulton District Attorney’s January 2007 Report on their investigation of the matter.
It is damn chilling to read about how someone who supposedly took an “oath to uphold” the law sought to give it the middle-finger and launch an investigation based on her own twisted mind and reasons. To accuse Antonizzi of “Violation of Public Oath” is too much like the Pot calling the Kettle Black.
But…this is just the beginning of LaGrua’s “training days” as the engineer of railroad jobs…
The Railroading of Melissa Simms
Melissa Simms currently works as an Assistant District Attorney, and resides in Tift County, Georgia.
In 2004, however, she had the misfortune of dealing with Shawn LaGrua as her boss.
Ms. Simms remembers her episode with LaGrua so well that she put everything down in an affidavit she recently wrote about the incident(s) with LaGrua (see attached)
There was a specific case dealing with a victim of domestic violence, and LaGrua and, her trusty sidekick, Investigator Jason Hammer (who is rumored to be still working in DeKalb) apparently lied to the victim of a domestic violence incident as if to say “Yeah, he beat you, but you deserved what you got. Why don’t you drop the case against your husband? Come to the courthouse and do that.”
We invite you to read the affidavit yourself and see if you can figure out why a) Hammer misled the victim of domestic violence to get her to come to the courthouse?, b) why LaGrua acted as though the victim had no rights under the law?
But wait…there’s even more about LaGrua to talk about…
The Railroading of Jacque Turner
In December of 2001, Jacque Turner was hired by the Georgia Professional Licensing Boards (“PLB”) Division of the Secretary of State as Area Supervisor of the Business Unit. Later, she was promoted to Deputy Director of the PLB Investigations section. In 2004, Turner became the Director/Chief of Investigations – PLB (Macon Office).
During the month of May 2007, Turner was notified that the Macon Investigators (Agents) and Inspectors would fall under the direction of the Inspector General’s Office in Atlanta. That is, Shawn LaGrua.
What transpired between Jacque Turner and Shawn LaGrua between May 2007 and September 2007 can best be understood by Turner’s e-mail she wrote to the Human Resources Department of the Secretary of State’s office on September 7 in which she describes quite the series of engagements she had with LaGrua, and all of these encounters contributed greatly to LaGrua creating a hostile working environment that drove Turner to finally quit in December 2007.
Now…we do have lots more info about the Turner-LaGrua-Handel situation, but we’re going to keep the powder dry on that and wait for the other side to put their feet in their mouths.
But wait…yes…there’s even more about Shawn LaGrua…
The Railroading of Laura Gallegos
The Railroading of Laura Gallegos was first covered in depth last week and we invite you to visit the Political Vine link below for that story, which was engineered by former Secretary of State Karen Handel and (of course) Railroad Chief Engineer Shawn LaGrua’s Inspector General Department.
The Railroading of Laura Gallegos
But WAIT!…yes…there’s ONE more item to present about Shawn LaGrua…
The Railroading of Jeff Rayno
Jeff Rayno is a former Republican Chatham County Commissioner.
In last December 16th’s meeting of the State Elections Board, Rayno was accused by Shawn LaGrua of “forging” voter signatures to get someone Rayno supported on the ballot…but when challenged by Rayno to produce the evidence (something normal people would call “probable cause”), LaGrua refused to produce it. And, in fact, couldn’t apparently produce it.
But, hey, in a supposed “probable cause hearing” under the guidance of someone like Karen Handel who has never finished college (or, perhaps even high school), what difference does it make that there was no evidence to support LaGrua’s “claim” of guilt of Rayno? After all, clearly, since Rayno had been working for the candidate who opposed Handel’s opponent in the race in Chatham County, who cares about stupid little crap like “evidence?”
Isn’t the SEB the place to be used by all its members and the Secretary of State to punish opponents to friends who run for office? That is what we discovered in the railroading of Laura Gallegos, because Deb Cox had to, of course, be 100% accurate in what she was claiming because she and Handel are such gooood Republican buddies.
SO, back to the December 16th meeting, not batting an eye at her IG Shawn LaGrua not being able to produce evidence, former SOS Handel apparently instructed SEB Member Kent Webb to make a motion to refer the case to the AG…and, after he made the motion, Handel then seconded his motion! (See December 16, 2009 Transcript of SEB Meeting here)
Folks, these kinds of meetings are supposed to be run according to Robert’s Rules of Order. Under Robert’s Rules, the only time the chair of a meeting votes is to break ties. For Handel, as Chair of the SEB, to vote on a motion should be appalling to anyone who believes our elected officials should be held up to at least the same standard as normal people.
But, Karen Handel is clearly clueless on silly things like “rules”, and Shawn LaGrua is clearly clueless on the concepts of things like “laws” and silly, moronic things like “legal procedures.”
You can read more about the Jeff Rayno case by reading the press release by Voter GA here.
MAYBE the US Attorney’s office will step in. Or, maybe the US Attorney’s office is chock-full of the same type of people that LaGrua is. Let’s hope not, but it could be…
Conclusions
The ONLY thing we can conclude is this: Shawn LaGrua may be a genuine psychopath.
Not the “Ted Bundy” or “Jeffrey Dahmer” types of folks, but if you look at that Wikipedia definition of what a psychopath is, it kinda clicks, especially when you consider what LaGrua did to Guy Antonizzi, did to Melissa Simms, did to Jacque Turner, allowed to have happened to Laura Gallegos, and what she did on behalf of Karen Handel against Jeff Rayno.
Can you imagine what will happen to the rights of due process to anyone unfortunate enough to appear before “Judge LaGrua”?
We predict this: Within 6 months of her taking the bench, several cases from LaGrua’s court will go to the Georgia Court of Appeals. They will find fault with LaGrua’s decisions because those folks up there DON’T make decisions based on personal feelings and their own psychotic minds. They base their decisions on matters of law and procedure.
Within one year of LaGrua taking the bench: Someone who tracks these things will notice an inordinate number of cases coming from LaGrua’s court to the Court of Appeals…and the numbers of times they overturn her decisions.
Within 2 years (and, after destroying many, many lives because anyone with any common sense can see there’s a problem right now with this woman and can predict what will happen in her court): the Judicial Qualifications Commission will start to get a clue that this one candidate (they were likely personally lobbied by the Governor on) isn’t…quite operating with all “normal” mental faculties.
And, within 5-7 years, someone’s going to finally remove her from the bench.
But, before that time, she’s going to wreak so much havoc, it will be unbelievable. And, every man, woman, or child who comes before her will have their lives irrepairably, and permanently harmed. Because she doesn’t give a damn about anyone or any law. As the 5 instances we’ve produced shows.
You could argue one or two wouldn’t mean anything. But, FIVE? Five that are so unrelated in time or place? Nah…these are not “coincidences.” These are not “exceptions.” Shawn LaGrua is a threat to our society as a member of the legal profession, and these 5 were just warm-up examples.
We’re certain there’s probably lots more incidents out there that people didn’t realize about. That’s the problem when dealing with psychopaths: You don’t realize what they are unless you have a high degree of normalcy yourself. Psychopaths can be so charming, and yet, be so pathological in their determination to screw with people’s lives.
Well…the Court of Judge Shawn LaGrua will open the world up to a new form of “entertainment”: LaGrua’s lack of caring about simple right and wrong should provide her a few years of sheer delight in ruining people’s lives. Pray for her future victims.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
This article lost all credibility right about here: Ms. Simms remembers her episode with LaGrua so well that she put everything down in an affidavit she recently wrote about the incident(s) with LaGrua (see attached).”
March 15th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Response to Ray Ipsa: Here are some more facts that you may not know. Guy Antinozzi worked as an investigator for attorneys including Melissa Simms, who trusted and respected him, just like everyone else he worked for did. The majority of her her affidavit contains undisputed facts previously corroborated.
If someone you know was terminated under the conditions described in the Fulton Co. investigative report and then you were terminated too under bizare conditions, I guarantee you would remember it vividly five years later.
It seems as though you were intentionally looking to find something wrong rather than trying to find the facts no matter where they lead as Bill did when he wrote this article. Fact finding requires that you actually read the article and supporting documents before jumping to a false conclusion.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Sounds like a great case for equal the access ballot for petitions, and mandatory taping of court room sessions!
March 25th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
I knew LaGrua personally, and without legal qualification, I say everyone should be concerned about her appointment, Bill’s analysis notwithstanding.
What the article could’ve shed light on was some idea of how a person so unqualified could be so chummy with someone in the governor’s office to keep getting these posh appointments.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
If you really want a clear picture of this woman, speak with the employees of the Sec. of State’s offices Investigations, Elections and Securities for a more candid look at the way she handled situations and almost messed up the whole process within each.