WALTON COUNTY, Ga. — A civil rights leader says he will not appeal his prison sentence for tax evasion and fraud.
Former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks spoke publicly Wednesday for the first time since his sentencing.
Brooks was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison on Monday. He admits he made mistakes.
He told Channel 2's Lori Geary that the case is the federal government's retaliation for his work trying to solve a lynching case dating back to 1946.
"I expect the FBI, federal government to attack us in any way possible," Brooks said. "I'm surprised they hadn't branded me as a leader of ISIL."
Geary traveled to Walton County Wednesday, where Brooks made his comments in front of the marker detailing the Moore's Ford bridge lynchings where two African-American couples were killed.
The case was never solved.
"Moore's Ford will go on. We will bring it to justice," Brooks said.
But Brooks' decades of work trying to solve the case will be on hold while he serves time after pleading guilty to tax evasion and no contest to five counts of fraud.
Federal prosecutors made a case that Brooks took money from corporations like Coca-Cola and Georgia Pacific for literacy programs, claiming that he used more than $500,000 of it for personal expenses.
"Why do they pick on peons? Civil rights workers? They pick on us because we're vulnerable," Brooks said.
Brooks and his attorneys, including former Gov. Roy Barnes, blamed the mistakes on sloppy bookkeeping.
Brooks said he should have hired an accountant and called it selective persecution by prosecutors.
"I could not disagree with that characterization more. This case was brought solely and specifically on Rep. Brooks' conduct," said U.S. Attorney John Horn.
"I'm just saying to you, Lori, I don't have any excuse for not having proper documentation, proper accounting practices, but there has never been any intent to defraud, never any intent to deceive," Brooks told Geary.
Brooks spoke for about an hour detailing a lot of his work on civil rights -- work that he says will continue once he serves his time.
A restitution hearing is set for January.
WSBTV
