Left: Harrison Floyd (Fulton County Jail mug shot). Right: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks on Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta (AP Photo/John Bazemore).
Harrison Floyd, the former leader of Black Voices for Trump and Donald Trump‘s co-defendant in criminal racketeering case in Georgia, has lost his appeal to have his indictment thrown out after claiming Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute him.
The ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals was terse, stating only that: “Upon consideration of the Application for Interlocutory Appeal, it is ordered that it be hereby DENIED.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, in October, Floyd, 39, argued that Willis could not prosecute him because it was only the Georgia State Elections Board which had the power to probe his alleged activities in 2020.
The Fulton County Superior Court was not convinced, with Judge Scott McAfee telling Floyd in January that Willis had “concurrent jurisdiction” to prosecute him, or any other election official and no board referral, as Floyd suggested, was necessary.
This prompted a flurry of pushback from the former Black Voices for Trump leader, including a request that McAfee reconsider. The judge did not and now, Floyd’s gambit to stop the charges against him have also failed.
Floyd was among the few of Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia who was jailed for a few days after he was first indicted, a byproduct of his failure to negotiate bond in advance.
According to the indictment, Floyd is charged by prosecutors with trying to pressure Ruby Freeman, the former election worker in Georgia who also became caught up in the defamatory crosshairs of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is in the throes of bankruptcy court proceedings now after a court ruled that he owes Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, roughly $148 million for the damage he caused to their reputations and lives.
Floyd is accused of telling Freeman that if she would not say there was voter fraud or if she committed it in Georgia, she would be arrested. Prosecutors allege Freeman was ultimately harassed by Floyd and fellow co-defendant Trevian Kutti, a onetime publicist to Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
According to the Fulton County indictment, Floyd is charged with racketeering efforts to influence the election results in the state criminally, influencing a witness and conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
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