A judge has ruled that the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been ordered to pay $54,000 in attorneys' fees and turn over documents that were withheld in violation of Georgia's Open Records Act, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Attorney Ashleigh Merchant and the Merchant Law Firm brought a lawsuit against Willis' office on behalf of Michael Roman, a staffer on President Donald Trump's 2020 election campaign who was a defendant in the election inference RICO case brought by Willis against Trump and several others. The suit seeks attorneys' fees and alleges that Willis "completely stonewalled" Roman's attorneys by withholding documents relating to the case against him.
"I submitted what I thought were pretty simple records requests," Merchant said in a statement. "They wouldn't give us anything. They wanted to make it as difficult as possible. "
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rachel Krause ruled on Friday that Willis' office failed to follow the state's Open Records Act by refusing to release around a dozen sets of records that included nondisclosure agreements that employees must sign, a list of attorneys that Willis hired after assuming office, and receipts for her office's contract with a "media monitoring service."
Krause noted that Willis' repeated failures to produce those records "were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious" and ruled that Willis' office must pay attorney fees and litigation expenses to Merchant, her husband and fellow attorney John Merchant, and their paralegal for the work they did in attempting to obtain the records.
Willis' office said in a statement on Monday that it plans to appeal the ruling.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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