Senoia vs. Senoia | Part Five: The Criminal Investigation That Isn’t

Editor’s Note: The City of Senoia has filed a civil lawsuit against former City Manager Harold Simmons, former Mayor Dub Pearman and former Mayor, former Assistant City Manager and current Coweta County Commissioner Jeff Fisher. All three deny wrongdoing. Earlier installments of this series examined the official-immunity hearing, the City Hall budgeting process, the compensation study and the demolition of a Sharpsburg church whose debris was taken to Senoia. This installment examines a separate question raised repeatedly in court and in interviews: Is there a criminal investigation?

For months, public statements surrounding Senoia’s lawsuit against three former city leaders created the impression that their conduct had been referred to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for possible criminal prosecution.

City officials had met with the GBI. They had presented findings from an investigation commissioned by the City. Mayor Scott Tigchelaar had discussed referring the matter for criminal investigation.

But the procedural step required to ask the GBI to open a case had not been taken.

As of the agency’s latest direct confirmation to The Citizen, no GBI investigation had been opened into Simmons, Pearman or Fisher.

City officials now say the formal request is still coming—after they receive the official transcript from July’s civil immunity hearing.

That distinction is not academic. The suggestion that someone is under criminal investigation can cause lasting reputational damage, even when no agency has opened a case, interviewed the subjects or concluded that a crime may have occurred.

What the GBI says happened

On July 6, The Citizen contacted GBI Special Agent Steven Sweatt to determine the status of any investigation involving the three former officials.

Sweatt said the agency had met with representatives from Senoia for a preliminary consultation.

“We did meet with them,” Sweatt said. “We had a case consultation meeting, and we requested that they provide us with an official written request if it was something they wanted us to look into, and we have not received an official written request from them at this point.”

Sweatt explained that the GBI generally acts only after receiving a request from an official authorized under state law to make one. Even then, submission of a request would not automatically open an investigation. The agency would first review the information and decide whether to accept the case.

Senoia Police Chief Jason Edens separately described essentially the same process.

Edens said he was asked to arrange a meeting involving the GBI, Tigchelaar and the attorney who conducted the City’s investigation. City representatives presented what they believed they had found, he said, and GBI officials explained that an official request would need to identify the alleged crimes the City wanted examined.

The request would then be reviewed within the agency before a decision was made.

Edens said he had no further involvement after the meeting. He also said he had asked that the Senoia Police Department remain outside the matter because an investigation of current or former City officials could place the department in what he described as a “lose-lose situation.”

A meeting—but no request

According to a timeline City attorney Steven Greene later provided to The Citizen, the mayor and council voted April 6 to share findings from the City’s investigation with the GBI.

Greene said Edens contacted the agency April 9 and the consultation occurred April 16.

Greene wrote that the GBI reviewed information presented by the City and discussed several possible offenses, including the filing of false documents. That description is Greene’s account of the meeting. The GBI has not told The Citizen that it determined a crime occurred.

Greene said the agency asked the City to prepare an evidence package if it wanted an investigation.

The City did not submit the required written request at that time.

Instead, Greene said officials decided to conduct additional forensic work and wait for evidence they expected to emerge from the civil immunity hearing involving Simmons, Pearman and Fisher.

That hearing began July 8, nearly three months after the GBI consultation.

Waiting for the transcript

Greene told The Citizen that the City intends to add the hearing transcript to its evidence package before formally requesting an investigation.

“Upon receipt of the transcript, the City will be in a position to forward it to the GBI officials with a request that the GBI investigate from either Chief Edens or the Mayor,” Greene wrote.

Tigchelaar has also said the referral remains planned.

The official transcript, however, is not expected for at least several more weeks. No firm date has been provided for when the request will be submitted after it arrives.

The City’s position raises an unavoidable question: If officials believed months ago that their investigation had uncovered potential crimes, why was the matter publicly discussed as a criminal referral before the required request was completed?

It also remains unclear why the hearing transcript is necessary to begin the process when the City had already conducted its own investigation and filed a detailed civil complaint.

The transcript could provide additional evidence. It could also document sworn explanations from the defendants that differ from the City’s conclusions. Until it is completed and the request is submitted, however, the anticipated GBI involvement remains a future step.

The issue reaches the courtroom

The absence of an active GBI investigation became significant enough that defense attorney Chuck Boring raised it with Judge Jephson Bendinger during the immunity hearing.

Boring told the court that, despite public statements surrounding the matter, there was no ongoing GBI investigation.

That was an attorney’s assertion, not a finding by the judge. But it was consistent with what Sweatt told The Citizen: The GBI had participated in a consultation but was still waiting for the formal request necessary to consider opening a case.

The issue also arose during The Citizen’s interviews with Simmons, Pearman, Fisher and Boring. The defendants said public statements had left people with the impression that an outside criminal agency was actively investigating them.

None said he had been contacted by a GBI investigator.

Pearman said the damage extended beyond the lawsuit itself.

“I think the process is the punishment, they really just want to drag us through the mud to get their pound of flesh,” Pearman said.

Whether the GBI should ultimately examine the allegations is a separate question. But describing the agency’s role accurately matters because being accused in a civil complaint, being discussed during a law-enforcement consultation and being the subject of an active criminal investigation are not the same thing.

A civil dispute with unresolved facts

The City alleges Simmons received salary increases that were not properly authorized and that Pearman and Fisher participated in approving, documenting or concealing them. Its complaint also includes allegations involving City records and the demolition of a church in Sharpsburg whose debris was transported to Senoia property.

The defendants deny wrongdoing. They contend that the challenged actions occurred within their official responsibilities and under practices that had been followed at City Hall for years.

The compensation dispute illustrates why the potential criminal characterization remains unresolved.

Senoia’s charter assigned the mayor and council responsibility for fixing the city manager’s compensation. But testimony showed that City Hall did not conduct separate annual performance evaluations and salary negotiations in the manner described by the charter and Simmons’ employment agreement.

Instead, witnesses described a process built around annual budgets.

Simmons and Fisher said the city manager’s compensation was shown in materials presented to the mayor and council and was authorized when those budgets were formally adopted.

Some council members testified that they did not remember specifically approving individual raises. Former Councilman Matt Foust, however, told The Citizen that he generally knew what Simmons earned and that elected officials had repeated opportunities to examine the budget and ask questions.

Before the addition of an assistant city manager, Foust said, the executive department had only one employee.

“If there’s only one person working in that department, then the salary is clearly their salary,” Foust said.

That does not determine whether the charter’s requirements were satisfied. It does complicate any suggestion that Simmons’ compensation was wholly unknown to the council or entirely hidden from the public budgeting process.

Poorly defined procedures, inadequate documentation or failures of municipal oversight may have serious consequences. They are not automatically crimes.

No court has decided whether the defendants violated the charter or incurred civil liability. No criminal agency has examined the full record and concluded that prosecution is warranted.

What happens next

The July hearing addressed whether Simmons, Pearman and Fisher are protected by official immunity from some or all of the City’s civil claims. It was not a criminal proceeding, and Bendinger has not yet ruled.

Tigchelaar and Greene say the City intends to submit its evidence package to the GBI after the transcript is completed.

When that happens, the GBI will still have to review the request and decide whether to open an investigation.

For now, the record establishes a City investigation, a civil lawsuit and an April consultation with the GBI. It also establishes months of public discussion about possible criminal conduct involving three men who have not been charged with a crime and, as of the latest confirmation, were not the subjects of an opened GBI investigation.

That distinction came too late to prevent the suggestion of criminal scrutiny from becoming part of their public reputations. It should not remain unclear while the City decides whether—and when—to complete the referral it has repeatedly said is coming.