Judge Mack Crawford, Griffin Judicial Circuit (Courtesy photo)

A Superior Court judge was indicted Wednesday on charges he stole more than $15,000 from the court registry and violated his oath of office, both felonies, a spokesman for Attorney General Chris Carr has confirmed.

A Pike County grand jury indicted Judge Robert M. “Mack” Crawford of the Griffin Circuit south of Atlanta following a criminal probe by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said Zebulon attorney Virgil Brown. Brown and former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes of The Barnes Law Group represent Crawford.

Brown said he was outside the grand jury room when it voted to indict. “We still contend the money's ours,” Brown said. “We are going to have a lawsuit to get the money back. We look forward to our day in court. … We still contend we've done nothing wrong.”

Crawford also faces ethics charges by the state judicial watchdog agency over the alleged theft. An ethics tribunal is scheduled for January.

The indictment comes just days after the Supreme Court of Georgia rejected a request by the Judicial Qualifications Commission to suspend Crawford from office with pay until the ethics charges and the ongoing criminal investigation are resolved.

The JQC filed ethics charges against Crawford in July after the judge became the target of the GBI. At the heart of both investigations is a check for nearly $15,676 in unclaimed funds that sat unclaimed in the Pike County Superior Court registry for more than a decade.

That money was placed in the registry by Crawford, who was then in private practice, on behalf of a client in a property tax dispute.

The case was dismissed in 2009, but the funds remained in the registry until last year when Crawford directed the court clerk in a handwritten note to write him a check for the unclaimed funds.

Crawford's counsel have countered that the registry funds are legal fees that have been owed to Crawford for 16 years. Crawford claimed he forgot to collect after his client died, and a second client moved out-of-state long before the case was dismissed. Brown said that Crawford returned the funds early this year but has since decided to file a claim against his former client's estate for the money.

Now that Crawford has been indicted, the JQC has the authority under its rules to suspend him without the high court's approval.

Agency rules give its three-member hearing panel—which includes Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Robert McBurney, Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register and Atlanta attorney Jamala McFadden—authority to suspend Crawford until after his ethics trial if they determine he constitutes a threat to the administration of justice or to the public if he continues to hear cases.

The GBI launched its investigation in March at the request of the state attorney general's office after the Griffin Circuit district attorney referred the matter. That month, Crawford signed orders recusing himself from hearing circuit criminal cases and civil forfeitures. In April, he signed separate orders recusing himself from child support cases. Crawford has continued to preside over pending civil cases while under investigation.

The hearing panel will also preside over the tribunal.