A former manager at a bank in Carroll County had a persistent and aggressive criminal defense attorney in her corner as she faced multiple counts of theft by taking and identity theft in a bank fraud case in a Georgia court.

It was good that she did, since, after pronouncing the investigation against his client as a “witch hunt” and arguing forcefully on her behalf in Carroll County Superior Court, her attorney convinced jurors late last month to return a unanimous vote of not guilty, with jurors taking less than one hour to reject the prosecution’s case.

The woman worked at the Community & Southern Bank in Villa Rica, and was accused by bank officials there of being involved in numerous illegal activities, including making fraudulent withdrawals from customers’ accounts and creating bogus loan documents through forgeries. She was arrested in June 2011.

The ex-manager’s defense counsel told the jurors at trial that both bank leaders and the local police department made a “rush to judgment” when they targeted his client. H praised the jury following the verdict, saying that, “They saw that there were many other hands in this that were never investigated.”

During the trial, reference was made to what “started the engine,” namely, the pointing out by bank auditors that irregular activity was noted in an account held by the defendant’s grandmother. Trial evidence established that the account was not managed by the defendant.

The trial lasted three days, with more than a dozen witnesses testifying.

Source: Times-Georgian, “Not guilty: Former bank manager acquitted of theft, identify fraud,” Colton Campbell, Feb. 27, 2013