Evangelist Matt Pitt has a new team of attorneys, including a lawyer for TV Evangelist Creflo Dollar, but their first effort to get him released from jail has failed.

Pitt, 30, founder of The Basement youth ministry, remains in Shelby County Jail for violating his probation on a 2012 charge of impersonating an officer. He was arrested on a similar charge on Aug. 20, and has been in jail since.

On Thursday, one of Pitt's new attorneys, Carmella Penn, filed a motion asking for Pitt to be released on supervised probation. Judge Dan Reeves on Friday denied that motion, saying it was filed without a signature.

Penn said the motion was updated electronically with a signature before the ruling, but she's not sure if Reeves saw it. "There was a motion filed with an electronic signature," she said. "The motion was designed to have him released from the most restrictive punishment. It could either be with or without an ankle monitor. He can be on supervised probation."

Penn said that she was brought into the case by Nikki Bonner, who has experience working with high-profile evangelists. "He previously represented Creflo Dollar," Penn said. Bonner met with Pitt at the Shelby County Jail on Friday, she said. Penn had met with Pitt earlier, she said. "He’s in good spirits and he was hopeful," Penn said of her meeting with Pitt at the jail. She said that Pitt's new team of attorneys plans to meet on Sunday to discuss strategy.

Penn said she reviewed the record of Pitt's probation hearing, when Pitt was represented by attorney Daniel Boman.

"I was not on his legal team at that time," Penn said. "It appeared to be very one-sided to me. I’ve been practicing 17 years now. I know it’s up to each judge. But generally a probation revocation hearing will be put off until the defendant can be found guilty or not guilty of the charges that led to the hearing."

Pitt is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Dec. 9 in Jefferson County on his most recent charge of impersonating an officer.

Before he was jailed a second time on Aug. 20 for impersonating a police officer, Pitt was one of the nation's most popular youth evangelists, filling auditoriums, drawing attendance of 5,000 to 7,000 mostly high school and college students. Even with Pitt in jail, the Basement still has weekly youth services that draw more than 100 people.

At a probation hearing Oct. 15, Pitt was sentenced to serve out 10 more months in jail for violating his probation on his first arrest in 2012 for impersonating an officer.

"I was disheartened by some of the things that went uncontested" at that hearing, Penn said. "There were no witnesses on his behalf. I just feel like he didn’t get the representation he should have gotten. Everything has been one-sided."

Penn said there's no reason why Pitt can't be out on supervised probation. "He’s not a violent offender," she said. "He’s a minister. It costs the county money to have inmates. There’s a better use for those funds."

Penn said that after the hearing, Pitt contacted Bonner, who then asked her to work on the case. Penn said she hasn't been able to contact Boman and is unsure if he will continue as part of the legal team.

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