‘Substantially groundless and vexatious’: Irate judge orders Fani Willis to pay attorneys fees for ‘intentional’ violations of open records laws in Trump RICO case

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, March, 1, 2024, in Atlanta (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool).

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has lost yet another case and is now being ordered to once again pay attorneys fees for her office’s intentional violations of Peach State open records laws.

As Law&Crime previously reported, the final judgment in the matter ancillary to the district attorney’s failed racketeering (RICO) prosecution of President Donald Trump was a foregone conclusion.

In October 2024, the judge overseeing the matter said Willis would lose and be subject to a monetary penalty. On Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rachel Krause formalized her ruling.

“The law doesn’t apply to you,” the judge sarcastically said during last year’s final hearing in the case — upbraiding a government lawyer.

In the case, attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents co-defendant Michael Roman in the underlying RICO prosecution, proved the district attorney’s office violated the Georgia Open Records Act by failing to quickly provide documents related to the employment and remuneration of Nathan Wade — the former special assistant district attorney forced to resign from the Trump case due to his onetime romantic relationship with Willis — and other documents related to how Willis’ office spent large sums of public funds.

Instead, the DA’s office delayed those requests for months and said the law did not apply to them — with one particular employee responsible for the stonewalling. Only when litigation was filed, and a subpoena was served, did the DA’s office comply with the law.

True sunshine filtered through the bureaucratic haze when Dexter Bond, the deputy of operations for the DA’s office, admitted under oath that he responded unfavorably to the plaintiffs based on the identity of the attorney filing the requests and concomitant lawsuit.

That behavior clearly irked the judge.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Agreed to produce’: Fani Willis tells court she will finally respond to subpoenas for documents and testimony about Trump RICO prosecution

“As noted during the hearing, Defendants — through the Open Records custodian, Dexter Bond — were openly hostile to counsel for Plaintiff, Ms. Merchant, and testified that Ms. Merchant’s requests were handled differently than other requests,” the court order reads.

Krause explains the problem, at length:

Mr. Bond indicated that he refused to communicate by telephone with Ms. Merchant, despite testifying that his usual practice is to call a requestor to get additional information when a request is unclear. While there is no requirement under the [Open Records Act] for Mr. Bond to call any a requestor about a particular request, Mr. Bond’s handling of Ms. Merchant’s requests in this manner indicates a lack of good faith. The evidence at the hearing also demonstrated that Mr. Bond failed to produce (or meaningfully inquire about) numerous non-disclosure agreements based on his unnecessarily limited interpretation of the request as pertaining only to media agreements. After Mr. Bond consulted with Defendants’ counsel, Mr. Bond understood the request to include “confidentiality” agreements and produced 22 such agreements. Later, an office-wide e-mail was sent, and numerous other agreements were identified and produced. Mr. Bond also testified he did not conduct any searches or make other meaningful search efforts in response to Plaintiff’s request for promotional and “re-branding” materials, claiming he did not know what the request sought and there “were no searches to perform.”

In the end, the judge said, Willis and her underlings “acted without substantial justification” under the relevant Georgia law.

“Defendants’ failures were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious,” Krause summed up.

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Ultimately, for their perfidy, the DA’s office was ordered to pay Merchant $54,264 in attorneys fees and litigation expenses.

The plaintiffs also received injunctive relief by way of an order directing Willis to finally provide three types of requested documents.

The DA’s office has 30 days to comply with the court’s order to pay or find itself subject to potential additional fees and expenses.

‘Substantially groundless and vexatious’: Irate judge orders Fani Willis to pay attorneys fees for ‘intentional’ violations of open records laws in Trump RICO case

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‘Substantially groundless and vexatious’: Irate judge orders Fani Willis to pay attorneys fees for ‘intentional’ violations of open records laws in Trump RICO case

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