Small-town Georgia DA brings almost as many RICO cases as Fulton’s Fani Willis

Broder spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ahead of her planned retirement at the end of the year, reflecting on her record as a prosecutor and her use of Georgia’s RICO statute. She says it has served her goal of helping the community, including helping her office push a gang out of Spalding County almost entirely.

“I don’t believe in just using RICO just to use it. You need to have a point. ‘What is your end game?’ And that’s always what I ask, ‘What are we trying to accomplish here?’” Broder said.

Credit: Ben Hendren

Credit: Ben Hendren

The Griffin circuit, which sits about 50 miles south of Atlanta, covers Fayette, Pike, Spalding and Upson counties.

Broder’s office has just one prosecutor handling its RICO cases, in stark contrast to Fulton and other more populous Georgia regions that have larger prosecutorial teams assigned to the complex litigation.

In Fulton, Willis has gotten 14 RICO indictments since taking office in 2021 against 130 defendants, netting 55 guilty pleas and three jury convictions.

Even with limited resources, Broder’s office has secured 136 convictions, the vast majority through plea deals, but also netted two jury convictions in May 2022 that resulted in gang leaders Andre Denard Noble and Myrrin Kendrell Watson getting sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Noble and Watson were found guilty of charges that accused them of leading a local network of Rollin 20 Neighborhood Bloods, a notorious street gang originally founded in south Los Angeles in the 1970s. Both were found guilty of committing armed robberies, aggravated assaults and drug trafficking, as well as delivering contraband to inmates inside Georgia Department of Correction facilities.

Of the almost 300 defendants, 59 of them had their charges dismissed or dropped for a variety of reasons, including taking plea deals in other cases, according to data provided by the DA’s office.

Broder, a Republican, brought a lot of experience when she was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to the position, having interned at the Georgia Prosecuting Attorney’s Council in the early 2000s, where she began to learn about the RICO statute.

During her internship, she worked with then-Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter, who was doing a lot of RICO cases at the time and helped build up her skills on handling the racketeering statute.

“RICO, in my opinion, is meant to get to the people at the top of an organization who aren’t necessarily on the street committing the crimes, but are ordering the crimes to be committed, and then it can be a very effective tool,” Broder said.

Georgia’s RICO law is more expansive than the federal statute, with less stringent requirements around accusing someone of benefiting from a scheme and allowing prosecutors to present certain evidence to jurors that wouldn’t otherwise be admissible.

Willis in Fulton County is the second-most prolific user of the statute in the state after Attorney General Chris Carr. She has used the statute to rope in rappers and big-name defendants who may not have been in Georgia when the alleged crimes occurred, including President Donald Trump and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Willis has faced scrutiny from former prosecutors and defense attorneys who say she may employ it too liberally in cases where the evidence doesn’t support the conspiracy allegations, or in cases where a more direct prosecution would be more efficient.

But John Floyd, an attorney considered to be one of the top experts on Georgia’s RICO statute, said Willis uses it effectively and sparingly. He has frequently been hired by the Fulton DA’s office to assist in the prosecutions.

Broder says she wants to use RICO to go after people directly harming her community, without concern for their fame — or infamy.

“I don’t like the notion of RICO being a tool to take down high profile people necessarily,” she said. “I see RICO as a way to push out people that are harming the community.”

Broder said she gets involved early on in the investigative process for RICO cases. She’s looking for comprehensive evidence to support the potential charges, she said.

She works hand in hand with officers instead of letting her prosecutors do all the work, she said, and makes sure law enforcement officials understand that not everything can be a RICO case.

Her office doesn’t have as many resources as other bigger DA offices do, which has presented challenges in bringing RICO cases at times. She said her colleagues, primarily in South Georgia, struggle with lack of resources, as well.

“You just can’t work a wire room, help with warrants, make sure surveillance is being done, corroborate the calls that are coming in, and build a very good RICO case without resources,” she said.

Credit: Ben Hendren

Credit: Ben Hendren

She said she ensures her prosecutors don’t overcharge or use RICO without having a clear plan on how to proceed. She views the statute as a powerful tool to go after gang leaders and others who might not be directly committing the crimes but are the masterminds behind those crimes.

Although she enjoys the work, Broder plans to leave behind the courtroom and take over her father’s farm in Upson County at the end of the year. Her chief deputy, David Studdard, will take over and plans to continue Broder’s legacy.

“We will continue to use RICO as it’s appropriate and applicable. As Marie suggested, we have a high level of scrutiny for these RICO cases,” Studdard said.

Studdard, who was an Atlanta police officer for 20 years before becoming an attorney in 2004, said they are going to miss Broder and that he has big shoes to fill as he steps into the role.

“She’s an amazing boss, she’s an amazing prosecutor, an amazing attorney and just a fantastic person. She’s a presence in the office that is going to be really missed,” he said. “They’re 3-inch heels, but they’re going to be some hard shoes to fill.”