Prosecutors drop charges against leader of Black nationalist group

“We thought the best course was to (drop the charges) and let Mr. Romain get on with his life,” Studdard said. “His lawyer has asserted to us that he has learned his lesson from all this. He’s out of the activist business.”

Kodzo’s attorney, Stacey Flynn, had a different view of why the charges were dropped: her client was innocent.

“It is exactly like I said it was from the beginning,” she said. “Mr. Romain was innocent from the start.”

Kodzo, 38, grew up in Stone Mountain and spent years in the early 2000s trying to catch on as a lifestyle blogger before emerging in 2019 as a disruptive force on Atlanta’s radical left. He established his Black Hammer group by pairing far-left revolutionary rhetoric with combative populism, picking online fights with other activists and announcing partnerships with the far-right Proud Boys. He also spewed violent rhetoric through a bullhorn around the Georgia State University campus and at his weekly “church” services at Woodruff Park.

During and after the COVID-19 lockdown, Kodzo appeared to be willing to do anything for attention, including a botched attempt to establish an independent Black-led separatist community in the Colorado Rockies and a prolonged online campaign attacking the memory of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, whose diary is taught in schools to this day. In Atlanta, Kodzo marched through downtown in military fatigues with an armed guard while shouting threats at police and Mayor Andre Dickens, all livestreamed on Black Hammer’s social media feeds.

The Black Hammer group also began recruiting new members from Atlanta’s homeless population, encouraging them to collect donations on the street to fund the party’s activities in exchange for food, clothing and for a select few, a chance to live in the communal headquarters.

Kodzo’s arrest came when prospective group member Dalvin Moore called 911 claiming he had been kidnapped and was being held in a locked garage at the house the group rented in Fayetteville. Another recruit allegedly had been held captive and sexually abused.

“The defense theory is these were simply homeless people who needed a place to stay,” Studdard said. “Our contention was this was a subversive group and the money Mr. Romain was getting these people to collect was going in his pockets.”

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Flynn described Kodzo and the Black Hammer members as “good kids” who were trying to make a difference by helping the homeless. The calls for violent revolution were political theater meant to drum up financial support for their activities, she said.

“It was all just talk,” Flynn said of her client’s rhetoric. “It was all just attention-seeking behavior.”

Soon after his arrest on state charges, Kodzo was charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with Alexander Ionov, a Russian national the FBI accused of being an unregistered Kremlin agent, to sow dissent and promote pro-Russian interests in the United States. Federal officials moved Kodzo from the Fayette County jail to federal detention in Florida where he waited to be tried alongside co-defendants from the St. Petersburg-based Uhuru Movement.

Encrypted messages entered into evidence in the case between Kodzo and Ionov detailed how Kodzo took advice and payments for staging pro-Russian demonstrations in Atlanta and at the California headquarters of Facebook parent Meta in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In one of the messages, Kodzo sent Ionov an article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailing the Black Hammer Party’s activities.

“The enemy is so mad about us doing great work together and supporting the Russian people. They are putting out lies through the media about me,” he wrote. “No worries though we are strong! I love press good and bad lol. … Nothing will stop the victory of Russia and oppressed people around the world rising against United snakes imperialism.”

Kodzo and his co-defendants were found guilty in the federal espionage trial, but in a hearing in December the judge in the case sentenced Kodzo to no additional prison time, placing him on five years probation instead. Kodzo has appealed the verdict.

While he was spared additional time behind bars, Kodzo was in custody by either state or federal authorities from the time of his arrest until his federal sentencing last month. Flynn said the time in prison “traumatized” her client.

With the dismissal of the state charges, Kodzo is free but his Black Hammer Party is in shambles. The group’s many social media channels have been dormant for the past year or longer, the last posts switching between posting pro-Russian propaganda and raising money for Kodzo’s criminal defense.

One member of the group died at the scene of the police raid in Fayetteville raid by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Other members of the group — many of whom were also charged in the state investigation — have scattered.

Only one Black Hammer member is in prison. Xavier “Keno” Rushin was arrested in the raid and made an early plea deal with prosecutors and is serving out a sentence for aggravated assault in Georgia’s Central State Prison. He is scheduled for release later this year.

Rushin was expected to testify against Kodzo, but Studdard said he was ultimately unwilling to call him to the stand.

“We had some serious concerns about what he was going to say should he be called,” he said.