Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who unsuccessfully tried to prosecute President Donald Trump on Georgia election interference charges, now faces scrutiny concerning a preschool abuse case.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge has claimed that Willis wanted her to approve pretrial diversion agreements for two defendants facing felony child cruelty charges but was not allowing the parents of the preschool-aged victims to weigh in.
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Pretrial diversion is a “restorative justice” alternative to traditional prosecution. The program requires offenders to take anger management classes or perform community service as punishment.
“The district attorney has now taken the position that victims have no right to be heard about such resolutions,” Judge Rachelle Carnesale said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She noted that such deals are typically presented in open court.
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Carnesale has reportedly recused herself from the child cruelty case against several former preschool workers accused of physically abusing the toddlers. According to the AJC, Carnesale’s voluntary in-court recusal came Monday, moments after denying Willis’s request to step aside.
In court filings, Willis claimed that Carnesale, who had previously approved a pretrial diversion agreement for a third defendant earlier this year, was caving to pressure after the parents publicly criticized the prosecution.
“The court’s selective departure from its normal approach in the case of the remaining co-defendants raises serious concerns about fairness and impartiality,” read the chief prosecutor’s recusal motion from Friday.
Carnesale, meanwhile, said she was asked to sign these two agreements under circumstances different from the first one.
Some of the parents who say their toddlers were abused by employees at Parker-Chase Preschool in Roswell, about an hour north of Atlanta, were in the courtroom Monday waiting to voice their opposition to the pretrial diversion deals when Carnesale recused herself instead.
“It feels as though they are on the side of the defendants,” mother Lynsey Atkinson said of the prosecutors. “It just doesn’t make sense,” added Atkinson, whose son was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after allegedly being abused at the preschool.
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“We’ve endured years of trauma, heartbreak and legal uncertainty,” father Ryan Randall told the judge at a hearing in June. “We begged for communication from the DA’s office, showed up to every proceeding, and remained patient through the constant turnover of attorneys, investigators, and advocates. Now it feels like we are asked to walk away quietly.”
In response to the claims, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office said its contact with the parents was sufficient.
“The state must do what is right even when victims disagree with that difficult decision,” the DA’s office responded.
Jason Sheffield, who represents ex-teacher Zeina Alostwani in the case, claimed that his client was overcharged. “When you look at the case as a whole and you watch the hundreds of hours of videos that the state originally went through, you see that you have some teachers that are overwhelmed, but they’re doing the best they can,” Sheffield said.
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Alostwani was indicted alongside Soriana Briceno and Lulwa Almouslli in 2022. Almouslli, who faced fewer charges than the other co-defendants, was ultimately granted a pretrial diversion agreement. Alostwani and Briceno each face felony counts of cruelty to children and misdemeanor battery charges.
The indictment accuses them of striking the children with their hands and books, pushing and pulling the toddlers, and holding them against their will, among other acts of abuse allegedly caught on camera. Alostwani is also accused of shoving a child’s face into a trash can.