Judge Mack Crawford, Griffin Judicial Circuit

More than $15,000 that Superior Court Judge Robert “Mack” Crawford of the Griffin Judicial Circuit claimed from the Pike County court registry last year were legal fees for work he did in private practice in 2002, according to his defense counsel.

Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, who is representing Crawford, said the funds were promised to his client by Dan Mike Clark and Bobbie Whalen as compensation for work done more than 15 years ago. Crawford, a former Georgia legislator and onetime head of the state Public Defender Standards Council, litigated their case without any initial retainer fee, Barnes said.

Crawford returned the funds to the registry when the money became the focus of an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Judicial Qualifications Commission in March, Barnes said. Crawford now intends to file a claim against Clark's estate for the money in Pike County Probate Court, Barnes added. Clark was in bad health when he turned to Crawford for help. Clark died in 2004.

Crawford, who has not responded to messages left at his chambers, is also represented by Zebulon attorney Virgil Brown.

Barnes acknowledged there was no fee agreement spelling out the disposition of the funds—which were required in order to forestall a tax foreclosure on the property where Clark was living with his companion at the time.

“Most fee agreements, except at the big firms—even with me a lot of the time—are not written agreements,” Barnes said. “You just have an agreement with the client, and everything gets done.”

Crawford faces JQC ethics charges for giving a handwritten note to a court clerk directing her to cut him a check for $15,675.62 last December. The JQC accused Crawford on Tuesday of violating the state Code of Judicial Conduct by taking the money and using it for his own personal benefit.

The JQC said that, while it has received four complaints accusing Crawford of questionable ethical conduct, it described the alleged theft of funds from the Pike County Superior Court registry as the “most egregious.”

The JQC contends the funds either belonged to Crawford's clients or should have been turned over as unclaimed property to the Georgia Department of Revenue. The agency also said that even if the funds belonged to Crawford, he was required by law to issue a formal court order to the clerk to disburse the money rather than a handwritten note.

The charges could result in disciplinary action, including potentially removing Crawford from office, if affirmed by an ethics tribunal. Crawford was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2010 by former Gov. Sonny Perdue, who is now secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Crawford ran unopposed in 2012 and won re-election in 2016.

The money at issue stems from a 2002 case involving efforts to redeem property where Clark was living following a public tax sale, Brown said. Crawford was in private practice at the time.

Crawford represented Clark and Whalen, who wanted to remove the property from foreclosure for nonpayment of county property taxes. Clark and Whalen gave Crawford more than $15,000 to deposit in the court registry while the lawsuit was pending—funds that would be needed to redeem the property from the buyer if they were able to roll back the tax sale.

Seven years after Crawford filed the case, Superior Court Judge Tommy Hankinson dismissed it in 2009 and directed the clerk to return the funds deposited in the court registry to Crawford's clients.

That never happened, according to the JQC. Last year, as the Pike County court clerk prepared to send what appeared to be unclaimed money to the state, she notified Crawford, according to a letter Griffin Circuit District Attorney Ben Coker sent to the Georgia Attorney General's Office in March. The judge instructed the clerk to pay him instead, according  to Coker's letter and the JQC.

Coker said the clerk notified him on March 9 that she wrote a check to Crawford at the judge's request.

Calling himself “a witness in a potential investigation against the judge,” Coker asked Senior Assistant State Attorney General David McLaughlin to appoint another prosecutor to review the matter “and determine the appropriate action, if any.”

McLaughlin called in the GBI on March 26. In a letter to GBI Director Vernon Keenan, McLaughlin requested an investigation of how and why Crawford decided to claim the check, and then allegedly deposit the money into his personal checking account. McLaughlin also said he would be the prosecutor on behalf of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr.

Brown said he has not yet seen a GBI report on its investigation. “I don't see how possibly there could be a criminal charge,” he added.

Clark was in bad health and had no money when Crawford agreed to take the case in 2002, Barnes said. Instead, he promised Crawford that if the lawyer could just arrange for him to stay in the the foreclosed house until he died, Crawford could have the money he placed in the registry as a fee, Barnes added.

“That's what Mack did,” Barnes said. “He never got anything paid up front.”

Brown said Wednesday that Crawford didn't try to claim the funds deposited in the registry in 2009 because “I think he had forgotten about it.” Crawford only recalled the unpaid fee when the court clerk let him know last year that she still had more than $15,000 in the registry that he deposited back in 2002, Brown said.