BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Jurors heard opening statements in the jury heard opening statements in the criminal trial for the former prosecutor charged with interfering in the police investigation of the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
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Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased 25-year-old Arbery in a pickup truck after seeing him run past their house on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded a cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery with a shotgun at point-blank range.
Greg and McMichael worked in Johnson’s office as an investigator before retiring in 2019.
Because of that connection, Johnson has said she immediately recused her office from handling the case and handed it to an outside prosecutor.
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Which is something her defense attorney outlined to jurors during their opening statements on Tuesday. The defense told the jury that Johnson told her coworker to prepare a letter to go to the attorney general for the state of Georgia and explain that he needed to appoint another prosecutor.
However, prosecutors told jurors that there was a conflict of interest and said that Ahmaud’s family was left in the dark when it came to who was prosecuting the murder case.
“Instead, the defendant Jackie Johnson put the interest of her chief investigator ahead of a crime victim,” said the state prosecutor in court Tuesday
The trial will continue Wednesday, and they will start calling witnesses to testify.
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