ATLANTA — The past year has been a lesson in disappointment for dozens of Georgia State Patrol cadets.
It was a year ago Friday that Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant broke the story that they were fired after being accused of cheating.
This week, one cadet told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne that he was in tears after watching the story about them getting cleared of wrongdoing.
“When I walked across that stage and shook the colonel’s hand, and shook the other command staffs’ hands, it’s one of the best feelings of my life,” said former Georgia State Patrol Trooper Daniel Cordell. “Just being there sends chill bumps down your spine.”
“Compare it to the feeling you got when you learned you’d been fired?” Winne asked Cordell.
“Heartbreak. One of the worst feelings of my life,” Cordell said.
Lawyer Jeff Peil told Winne that he filed whistleblower lawsuits Thursday on behalf of former troopers Andrew Justice and Cordell seeking justice for what he alleges happened to them as members of Georgia State Patrol Trooper School 106.
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“I’d like to see most of these men back in action enforcing the laws like they were trained to do,” Peil said.
The men were fired along with 30 others, having been accused of cheating on an exam when they were cadets. One individual resigned.
Cordell said he was watching Channel 2 Action News on Thursday when he learned POST, the agency that oversees police certification, investigated and found no basis to take any action against the certification of 32 of the 33 former troopers.
He said it hit him hard.
“To be honest with you, I sat on the floor and I cried. I’m going to be straight-up honest with you, I cried like a baby. Just because the truth, you know, finally came out,” Cordell said.
“There’s the lack of that malicious intent to do the wrong thing,” POST Executive Director Mike Ayers said Thursday.
Peil said those vindicated by POST include Cordell and Justice.
“They were told to take the test in this way, they did it, and then they were made scapegoats,” Peil said.
The lawyer alleges that during the GSP cheating investigation conducted before POST’s investigation, his clients disclosed Justice had been told to assist fellow cadets in passing the exam after hours and without a proctor present, a violation of the rules.
Each suit says the “plaintiff’s termination was not for cheating, but rather was a direct result of his disclosures of the GSP’s violation of, or noncompliance with, a law, rule, or regulation.”
Ayers said instructors denied telling cadets to break rules and POST erred by approving an online test.
“It is basically a breakdown in communication that led to this,” Ayers said.
Documents indicate another whistleblower suit was filed last year for more than two dozen former members of the 106th Georgia State Patrol Trooper School.
In that case, members of the Attorney General’s office said all actions taken by defendants with respect to plaintiffs’ employment were taken for legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons and that those plaintiffs did not disclose a violation of a law, rule or regulation, since the information given was already well-known and was provided involuntarily.
In a statement to Winne on Friday, The Department of Public Safety it will not comment due to pending litigation.
Cox Media Group
