Fulton County Jail staff brace for Trump to turn himself in on RICO charges
ATLANTA - Former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants have until next Friday to surrender at the Fulton County Jail on charges they conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, District Attorney Fani Willis said.
On Wednesday, deputies stood guard at the jail entrance and kept the news media across the street in preparation for the slew of newly-indicted inmates.
Sheriff Pat Labat said the former president, like every other defendant that comes through the Rice Street jail, will have a mugshot taken.
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Criminal defense attorney Josh Schiff said he’s been through the booking process with clients more times than he can count in the last two decades.
"There is a lot of sitting. This is a slow process," Schiff said. "A trip to Rice Street is one of the rare commonalities of virtually everyone who is processed criminally in Fulton County shares."
What will Trump's booking look like at the Fulton County Jail?
Sheriff Labat says the former president and his alleged co-conspirators will be treated just like anyone else being booked into the Rice Street Jail. The booking process normally includes a pat down, fingerprinting, a mugshot and a criminal history check.
"This is a formalized procedure of all persons who are remanded into the custody of the Sheriff," said Charles Rambo, a retired Fulton County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant. "We want to ensure that this is a process that is consistent with the rule of law and not trying to satisfy public sensationalism."
Rambo has more than a decade of experience at the jail. He says while Sheriff Labat is right that everyone will be treated the same on the surface, he says high-profile people are handled differently.
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"Typically, they would come in through the front door of the jail, go through the same procedures, but would be brought back and just placed ahead of the queue," Rambo said.
Rambo says the reason for the expedited process is about safety. He says in the past there have been documented incidents of violence in the intake area and it is easier to handle people like the former president separately.
"You definitely want to make sure that nothing happens that otherwise will draw more attention to the case than it deserves," Rambo said.
Will the Fulton County Jail conditions interfere with Trump's surrender in Georgia?
While it isn’t clear what Trump’s stay at the facility may look like, Schiff said that generally inmates in the overcrowded jail are put in a big holding area until they are booked.
"How the president’s guaranteed Secret Service security interacts with the Fulton County jail is the big question," he said. "We have a federal agency with very clear and strict mandates regarding protecting President Trump."
Mr. Trump’s anticipated surrender at the Rice Street jail comes as the Department of Justice investigates the dilapidated facility for inhumane conditions.
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One man named Lorenzo, who said he had just bonded out of the facility on Wednesday, described those conditions as stomach-turning.
"The rooms are nasty as f---. It smells nasty. It ain’t nowhere anybody wants to be at," Lorenzo said. "You know they’re going to put [Mr. Trump.] by himself. They’re not going to have him with the rest of us. The process might move faster for him than they do for us because, at the end of the day, he’s somebody more important than we are."
However, top jail officials have indicated that the former president would not get any special treatment.
"The worst thing that the DA and the sheriff can do is treat these individuals differently from other individuals," Schiff said. "That raises the specter of selective enforcement."
Will Trump strike a deal in his surrender in Georgia?
He added that while increasingly unlikely, it is possible for the defendants to strike a deal with the district attorney’s office on terms of bond before they are even processed.
Meanwhile, Schiff said his clients are suffering due to the attention and bandwidth of the county’s justice system focused on Mr. Trump’s RICO indictment and the YSL case.
"I represent individuals who have been languishing for weeks just waiting for a five-minute hearing," he said.
Former President Trump and his 18 allies named in the indictment have until next Friday to turn themselves in. At this point, it is unclear if they will be able to bond immediately or have to wait for a hearing in front of a judge.