Source: Handout / Getty
UPDATED: 8:00 a.m. ET, Aug. 31
Originally published on Aug. 29
The lone Black man arrested in former President Donald Trump’s Georgia RICO indictment has finally been released from jail after a nearly week behind bars in one of the most notorious detention centers in the U.S.
Harrison Floyd, the former leader of Black Voices for Trump, was on Wednesday granted a bond of $100,000 that was able to be paid only by leaning on online donations that will likely also fund his legal fees he was unable to previously afford.
A GiveSendGo crowdfunding page attracted more than $280,000 in donations, allowing Harrison to pay for his conditional release from the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Chris Kachouroff, a Virginia-based attorney who filed paperwork Monday to represent Floyd in Georgia, said he was contacted Tuesday by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office to arrange the bond and claimed his client was only given bond because the prosecutor “didn’t like the optics” of Floyd remaining behind bars any longer.
“She was just letting him rot in there,” he said. “I told Harrison ‘this is ridiculous. She should have jumped in there and done the right thing.’”
Jeff DiSantis, Willis’ spokesman, strongly denied Kachouroff’s version of events.
“Mr. Floyd has had the opportunity to work out a consent bond in the same manner as the other defendants named in the indictment, but chose not to do so until today,” he said.
Previously, it was reported that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has set a hearing date for Thursday to determine if Floyd would get bond on five felony counts.
Floyd is accused of allegedly harassing county elections worker Ruby Freeman. The indictment says that Floyd, alongside his co-defendants Stephen Lee and Trevian Kutti attempted to pressure Freeman to “reveal information under the threat of incarceration if she did not comply.”
Floyd had been in Fulton County Jail since last Thursday and was the only one of the 19 defendants in the Trump RICO to not have a bond in place before his surrender.
During a court hearing last week, Floyd tried to explain to the judge that he was broke and couldn’t afford a private lawyer, but the judge didn’t seem to have much remorse.
Judge Emily Richardson initially denied Floyd’s bond due to a prior arrest in which Floyd allegedly charged an FBI agent who was trying to serve him a grand jury subpoena connected to Trump’s federal case in Washington, D.C.
Trump supporters have rallied around Floyd’s claims that he couldn’t afford representation.
“Harrison is very grateful for all of your overwhelming support. Yesterday, at Harrison’s initial hearing where no lawyer was present, the judge denied bond because she said he was a flight risk,” Dominion Law Center, which created the GiveSendGo crowdfunding page, said in part at the time. “Harrison is innocent. There is no victim here in this fake case being brought by Fani. Harrison shouldn’t have to post any bond whatsoever. After all, how can he be a flight risk when he voluntarily turned himself in.”
The original goal of the page was to raise $200,000, but this was increased after Floyd’s initial bond hearing.
On Aug. 14, Trump and his allies were indicted in Georgia using the RICO statute for their respective roles in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The defendants were forced to surrender at the Fulton County Jail no later than last Friday.
Fulton Country Jail in Atlanta is no stranger to controversy and has a history of horrid conditions.
According to a report by the Southern Center for Human Rights, the jail was built to house around 1,300 prisoners but has more than 3,000. The report also said that inmates were “significantly malnourished” and dealing with a condition called cachexia, also known as wasting syndrome.
A total of six people died in the Fulton County Jail system in 2023, including four in the last month alone.
SEE ALSO:
Trump To Surrender At Same Atlanta Jail Where A Black Man Was ‘Eaten’ Alive By Bugs
Op-Ed: Fulton County Prosecutors Share Blame For Jail Overcrowding
