By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Felony charges are still possible against a former Cobb police officer and a passenger on the boat the April night another officer drowned on Lake Allatoona.
Cherokee District Attorney Garry Moss on Thursday had rejected the felony charge of lying against Sgt. Kenneth Reda and temporarily sent the case to the county solicitor to be prosecuted as misdemeanor obstruction and giving false statement charges.
Friday, Moss took the case back and said he will once again consider felony charges against the former Cobb SWAT officer after he realized the case involved a fatality.
“It’s not over until a judgment is filed one way or the other,” Moss said. “These are charging decisions, and I’ll look at it again.” Felony charges also will be considered against the passenger, Shelly Powell, also accused of misleading investigators.
“I didn’t realize there was an investigation concerning the boat fatality,” Moss said. “All I had on my desk was an arrest warrant for lying. On Tuesday [the state Department of Natural Resources] came to me with a charge of second-degree homicide by vessel. I didn’t oppose their recommendation. The only case [from the sheriff’s office] we had contact on was the false statement case.”
The story told by Reda changed often as investigators looked into the boating death of his friend, fellow police Officer Brent Stephens, according to documents reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Stephens, also a member of the Cobb County Police Department’s SWAT unit, Reda and Powell were returning from dinner at a lakeside restaurant the night of April 22 when their boat hit a pylon in the dark waters of Lake Allatoona, throwing Stephens overboard, investigators say.
The accident happened about 9 p.m. Reda didn’t call 911 until about 10:30 p.m. Stephens’ body was not found until the next afternoon.
Interviews conducted by sheriff’s office investigators reflect the changing stories of Reda and Powell, both initially charged with felony obstruction and lying to a law enforcement officer.
Investigators, in a file presented to the Cherokee County DA, wrote that Reda and Powell collaborated on a story to tell police and cleared the boat of 13 empty beer bottles before Powell called a friend for a ride to her car and Reda went back to the spot where Stephens went into the water and called for help.
Reda’s attorney, Jimmy Berry, had not been informed the case could become a felony again.
“For goodness sake, that’s crazy,” Berry said. “I’ve never had anything like that happen in 40 years. I don’t know what they will find. There’s no showing of alcohol on his part. It’s not a felony. I’m not sure what they’re doing.”
The decision to downgrade the charges was made without talking to the Stephens family or to sheriff’s office investigators.
“It was just like delivering that death notification a second time,” Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison said of telling the Stephens family that the felony charges had been dropped. “I’m so disappointed and so frustrated. We had a very sound case. [Reda and Powell] lied to us. They didn’t tell us what actually happened for 23 hours.”
The victim’s father, Mike Smith, said news that the case had been downgraded was worse than hearing his son was dead.
“We weren’t expecting them to be letting [Reda] go free without [giving us] a phone call,” he said. “It’s like a slap in the face.”
Reda turned himself in on the misdemeanor charges Thursday and posted an $800 bond.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution