UGA grad student busted for cyberstalking Massachusetts woman

ATLANTA – A University of Georgia graduate student was charged Friday with cyberstalking and extortion through interstate threats aimed at a Massachusetts woman.

Gary E. Leach, 23, of Athens, is accused of obtaining private video calls from the victim by surreptitiously recording the calls, as well as photographs of a sexual nature from the victim. He then allegedly threatened to share the material with her family if she did not continue to send him content of a sexual nature.

Leach is alleged to have used anonymous Instagram accounts to contact and harass the victim, including accounts featuring nicknames for the victim and several variations of the username “u.kno_who.”

While communicating with the victim, he allegedly indicated to her that he had engaged in similar conduct with other Instagram users, some of whom also did not know they were being recorded.

The charge of stalking by electronic means provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Extortion by interstate threat of injury to reputation carries up to two years in prison, one year of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Federal authorities are asking anyone who believes they may have been victimized by Leach to visit https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/victim-and-witness-assistance-program/us-v-gary-leach  

The U.S. attorney’s office and FBI Field Division in Boston handled the investigation.

Biden to visit Atlanta on 100th day in office amid election laws debate

President Joe Biden, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris (back), spoke on the recent spa shootings and COVID-19 federal aid at Emory University in Atlanta on March 19, 2021. (White House video)

President Joe Biden plans to visit Atlanta next Thursday, marking his 100th day in office.

It will be the second time Biden travels to Georgia since taking office in January, following his win over former President Donald Trump in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election by 11,779 votes.

Biden’s visit comes as his administration pushes a $2.3 trillion infrastructure package and continues overseeing distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

Details on Biden’s Atlanta visit next week have not yet been disclosed by the White House. The president will be joined by First Lady Jill Biden.

Georgia has taken center stage in national politics over the past several months as Democrats competed for and won both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats, handing Democrats control of Congress and the White House until at least the 2022 midterm elections.

The state remained a political lightning rod after Republican state lawmakers passed and Gov. Brian Kemp signed controversial changes to Georgia’s mail-in and early voting laws late last month.

Biden called the state Republican-led voting changes “Jim Crow in the 21st century,” echoing Democrats’ efforts to paint the measures as acts of voter suppression targeting minority voters. Republicans argue the law changes are needed to bolster confidence in the state’s election system.

Democratic leaders including Georgia U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are now pushing national legislation on elections that aims to curb some impacts from Georgia’s recently enacted voting law changes.

Biden’s prior visit to Atlanta March 19 alongside Vice President Kamala Harris came days after mass shootings at three spas in the Atlanta area left eight people dead including six Asian American women. The killings sparked nationwide calls for solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islanders community.

During that visit, Biden mourned the shooting victims and touted a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that Congress had passed shortly before the president’s Atlanta tour.

The president also during that visit hailed Georgia as a key battleground state that paved the way for passage of the new pandemic relief bill due to Warnock’s and Ossoff’s election. He urged supporters to oppose the Republican-led elections bill, which at the time had not yet passed in the General Assembly.

“We’re in a fight again,” Biden said in March. “It’s a fight we need because if anyone ever doubted that voting matters, Georgia just proved it did. … If anyone ever wondered whether voting can change a country, Georgia just proved it can.”

Biden previously visited Georgia several times ahead of last year’s general election in November and the Senate runoffs in January.

Lack of consensus sinks COAM reform bid

ATLANTA – Efforts to reform Georgia’s coin-operated amusement machines (COAM) business will have to wait until next year.

Legislation aimed at cleaning up the industry by offering game winners redeemable gift cards as an incentive to stop illegal cash payouts fizzled on the last night of this year’s General Assembly session.

The bill fell victim to a lack of consensus about whether and how to reform the COAM business.

During the 2021 legislative session that wrapped up at the beginning of this month, the gaming companies that own the machines not only disagreed with the convenience store owners who house the games. The two groups couldn’t even reach agreement within their own ranks.

“You’ve got folks fighting each other. We don’t think that’s good for the industry,” former Georgia House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, a lawyer representing Norcross-based COAM supplier Lucky Bucks, said during a state Senate committee hearing. “We ought to be taking a little extra time before we move forward.”

While the COAM business is perceived as a poor relation to the Georgia Lottery, the industry has become the biggest revenue-raiser for the Georgia Lottery Corp. since the lottery took it over in 2013, state Rep. Alan Powell, the bill’s chief sponsor, said in a recent interview.

Last year, the machines brought in more than $90 million in proceeds to the lottery under a formula that dedicates 10% of those earnings to the state, and another $12 million in license fees.

“It’s been growing every year because people like to play these games,” said Powell, R-Hartwell.

At the same time, the industry has been plagued by retailers awarding illegal cash payouts to winners, Powell said. Under state law, winners are only supposed to receive merchandise or gasoline sold at the convenience store.

Powell’s bill calls for awarding gift cards to game winners as an incentive for retailers to stay away from cash prizes. As an enforcement mechanism, the measure also would fine violators and – more importantly – ban them from future participation in the COAM business.

“These gift cards should help clean up the paying out of cash in this industry,” Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said during a House floor debate on the bill.

The House passed Powell’s bill on the last night of the General Assembly session. But it had not reached the Senate floor for a vote before lawmakers adjourned minutes after midnight.

The reticence of the Senate to take up the bill on the session’s last night reflected opposition to the legislation aired during a lengthy hearing the Senate Regulated Industries Committee had held the week before.

A key complaint from both senators and lobbyists was over another issue plaguing the COAM business: the payment by gaming companies of illegal inducements to retailers to install a company’s games in their convenience stores.

“Most of the operators in the state want to see it done right,” Powell told committee members. “[But] some of the master license holders continue predatory practices when it comes to inducements or back-door methods of trying to take retailers from [each] other.”

Powell’s bill called for going after the offering of illegal inducements by providing for judicial review of complaints rather than having them heard by the Georgia Lottery Commission.

“It’s not right that if a case is made by the lottery against a retailer or master license holder, it goes to a hearing officer appointed by the … lottery commission,” he said. “There needs to be due process for the sake of fairness and what’s right.”

But state Sen. John Kennedy objected to shifting management of the COAM industry away from the lottery. Kennedy, R-Macon, chaired a Senate study committee on the COAM industry last year and sponsored a bill of his own on the issue this year.

“This bill takes tools away from the lottery that it currently has,” added Paul Oeland, senior counsel for Stockbridge-based United Gaming.

Others who testified before the committee objected to moving forward with the gift card provision.

Lindsey said the lottery commission has yet to assess the results of a pilot project it launched last year testing the concept.

“The gift card ought to be put on pause until after the pilot program is finished,” he said.

On the other hand, Emily Dunn, an amusement game operator from Blue Ridge, gave the gift card a strong endorsement.

“The card is convenient. It is easy to use for players. It is transparent. It is easy to track and audit,” Dunn told the committee. “You cannot track cash. You can track a card.”

The months-long “interim” period before the 2022 General Assembly convenes next January will give the various parties time to try and work out their differences.

“That bill is alive and well over [in the Senate],” Powell said. “A senator or two has reached out to me to say they want to carry it next year.”

Georgia Lottery enjoys record third quarter

ATLANTA – The Georgia Lottery is coming off the most successful quarter in its 27-year history.

The lottery raised more than $415.8 million in profits for education during January, February and March, an all-time record for a quarter, the Georgia Lottery Corp. reported Thursday.

“The Georgia Lottery’s extraordinary results have a wide-reaching impact on Georgia’s students, families and communities,” Gov. Brian Kemp said.

“Lottery-funded Pre-K prepares our youngest students with a foundation for learning, while HOPE keeps our best and brightest students in state, building a strong workforce and driving economic development in Georgia.”

The lottery also set a record for the first three quarters of a fiscal year, transferring $1.47 billion to the Lottery for Education Account between last July and the end of March.

Third quarter sales were driven by large Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots that began growing late last year and extended into January.

The lottery has returned more than $23.4 billion to the state since its inception in the mid-1990s. More than 1.9 million students have received a HOPE scholarship, while more than 1.6 million 4-year-olds have attended the voluntary pre-kindergarten program.

Georgia initial jobless claims heading back down

ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia declined last week, welcome news after an increase reported the week before.

Jobless Georgians filed 32,381 initial unemployment claims last week, down 6,001 compared to the previous week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.

Claims had gone the other way the week before, increasing by 4,759 during the first week of April.

Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out in a serious way in Georgia in March of last year, the state has issued more than $20.9 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits.

The labor department has processed nearly 4.7 million first-time jobless claims during that time, more than during the nine years prior to the pandemic combined.

The job sector accounting for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia last week by far was accommodation and food services with 9,184 claims. The manufacturing job sector was next with 3,366 claims, followed by administrative and support services with 3,058.

More than 230,000 job openings are listed on the website EmployGeorgia. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume and assisting with other reemployment needs.