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Woman spends 5 months in jail in botched case
A local woman was locked for five months for something she did not do. Now the City of Atlanta is settling up, paying her $1.5 million.
ATLANTA - A local woman says the mental stress was even worse than the physical toll of being locked up for something she did not do. Juzema Goldring was behind bars for five months before she was allowed to go free.
The Atlanta police incident began with the young woman and a friend being stopped for jaywalking.
It happened during what she had planned to be a night out in the midtown area.
The officer, for some reason, asked to check Goldring's pocketbook. She agreed and watched the officer pull an exercise tool -- a stress ball -- from the purse. The balls are filled with a granular substance (sand) in this case. The officer cut it open looking for cocaine.
Goldring was driven to jail. That stress ball was sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for testing.
"I kept telling the officer he was making a mistake," Goldring told FOX 5.
Her attorney in a successful civil case characterized the entire stop as being "manufactured".
Jeff Filipovits said APD operates under a quota system to measure officers.
"They have to make a certain number of cases -- tickets," the attorney said.
Filipovits said GBI issued a report one month after the arrest showing that what Goldring had in her purse was not cocaine.
Even so, she remained locked up for an additional four months.
The attorney said no one within the court system was looking out for the GBI report.
Goldring could not afford private criminal counsel. She had a public defender.
"They are overburdened, and this was the system my client was thrown into," Filipovits said.
The Atlanta City Council approved paying Goldring $1.5 million.
A fresh start is what the young woman hopes that money will afford her.