Retired Ga. Judge Accused of Human Trafficking in Nanny Case
Updated: A retired Fulton County magistrate judge, along with family members (including a son who is a sheriff’s deputy), has been arrested and charged with human trafficking concerning a nanny who worked in the son’s home.
William Garrett Jr., 72, who is now a lawyer in Alpharetta, Ga., worked as a magistrate judge at the time of the alleged federal crime, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The newspaper says Garrett is alleged to have conspired with his son and daughter-in-law, beginning in January 2003, to induce the nanny, who is from India, to enter into what U.S. Attorney David Nahmias described as a “form of modern-day slavery.”
The indictment says the couple eventually, as the newspaper puts it, “stopped paying the nanny, curtailed her freedom, made her live in an unheated basement room and told her she could be jailed easily because she was a criminal.” After she escaped from the son’s home in 2005, he and his wife allegedly made false allegations of theft against her.
However, a lawyer for the suspects says the feds got it wrong, reports the Gainesville Times.
“I think when you talk to the neighbors, when you find out what kind of people the Garretts are, I think the government just made a mistake,” says Manny Arora, an Atlanta lawyer who represents all three Garretts.
Updated at 4:20 p.m., central time, to include comment from suspects’ lawyer.
