Sentences reduced for 3 in Atlanta cheating scandal

Donna Lowry | WXIA-TV, Atlanta

Show Caption Hide Caption 3 in Atlanta cheating scandal get reduced sentences The judge ruling over the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal case has reduced the sentences of three former administrators after experiencing a change of heart.

ATLANTA — Three former Atlanta Public Schools administrators who received the harshest sentences earlier this month after being convicted of conspiring to cheat on standardized tests were resentenced Thursday to terms that would allow them to serve only three years in prison.

Judge Jerry Baxter of Fulton County Superior Court, who on April 14 told school district's former regional directors that they would serve seven years in prison of a 20-year term, gave Tamara Cotman, Sharon Davis-Williams and Michael Pitts new sentences of 10 years in prison, allowing them to serve three years behind bars with the balance as probation.

Pitts additionally will serve another three-year term, to run concurrently, because he also was convicted on a charge of influencing a witness. The sentences in one of the country's largest school cheating scandals still were higher than prosecutors' recommendations, but the prison time equals those suggestions.

"When a judge goes home and keeps thinking, 'There's something wrong,' something is usually wrong. I want to modify it so I can live with it," Baxter said.

In his resentencing, Baxter also reduced the three administrators' fines to $10,000 from his original $25,000. He did not change the 2,000 hours of community service — roughly a year of 40-hour workweeks — for each administrator in his original sentence.

Cotman's lawyer, Benjamin Davis, tried to use the opportunity of being back in court to indirectly ask Baxter to throw out his client's conviction, but Baxter made it clear that was not his intention.

"I want to modify it to be something fair and something I can live with," Baxter said. He gave Cotman, Davis-Williams and Pitt the toughest punishments because he considered them the leaders of the effort to change students' answers.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall was among those charged but never went to trial, saying she was too sick. She died March 2 of breast cancer.

"He recognized there's a legal mistake here," Davis said.

The three administrators were among 11 educators convicted April 1 of conspiring to cheat on state standardized tests.

The defendants had been accused of falsifying test results to collect bonuses or keep their jobs in Atlanta Public Schools. In all, 35 educators were indicted in 2013 on charges including racketeering, making false statements and theft. Many pleaded guilty and some testified at the trial.

One former teacher, Shani Robinson of Dunbar Elementary School, had a baby earlier this month and has not been sentenced. She is expected to find out her punishment in August.

Only one of those on trial, Dessa Curb, a now-retired special education teacher at Dobbs Elementary School, was acquitted.

Two of those convicted, former testing coordinator Donald Bullock and former teacher Pamela Cleveland, decided to take a plea deal that prosecutors had offered. Cleveland became the only one of the former educators to elude jail time, but both waived their right to appeal their sentences.

Aside from the three former district regional directors, the defendants who didn't take the deals received prison terms of one or two years, with the remainder of their five-year sentences to be served on probation. Most sentences also include community service and a fine.

All eight, including the three in court Thursday, have made it clear that they will appeal and are free on bond pending their appeals. A lawyer for one educator already has filed notice of intent to appeal.

District Attorney Paul Howard of Fulton County said he was satisfied with the new sentences, saying they were in line with his office's recommendations since the former educators refused to admit guilt.

"We would always hope that people would accept responsibility, and in that way, they would have been serving weekends in jail and this would be essentially over," he said.

After her court appearance, Davis-Williams told reporters that her original sentence had been devastating and she was grateful for the judge's change of heart.

"I'm pleased that Judge Baxter did reflect. That was refreshing," she said, adding that she maintains her innocence and plans to appeal.

"I'm not Oliver Wendell Holmes," who served for 30 years on the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 20th century, Baxter said. "But I have a feel for trials and cases, and I have a feeling that this case is going to be affirmed."

Because the judge anticipates that the appeals process will take a couple of years, he recommended that all of those convicted become involved in the Atlanta Redemption Academy, a nonprofit that District Attorney Paul Howard of Fulton County announced two weeks ago.

The venture is supposed to identify current and former Atlanta students whose education was shortchanged because false test scores meant they didn't get the extra academic help they needed. It will offer those victims of the cheating scandal remedial classes, job training and help getting into college.

He encouraged the educators to volunteer now and encourage retired Atlanta teachers to help, dangling the possibility of suspended sentences if the commit themselves wholeheartedly to re-educating kids who have come from the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

"And if I'm not correct (and the sentences are overturned), you still will have served the community," Baxter said. "These are smart people, and I think they have something to offer."

Contributing: The Associated Press