Shani Robinson was one of the Atlanta teachers who was convicted during the Great Cheating Scandal of 2015. Almost ten years later, she and five others who refused to plead guilty are still free while appealing their convictions. Shani wrote a book about her ordeal called None of the Above, which I reviewed here. Shani’s book persuaded me that she had not cheated; she had no motivation to cheat since the scores of first-graders did not count for AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) or for a bonus for her. She was outraged to be accused of cheating, and she resisted all plea deals that required her to plead guilty or to accuse others, even if the plea deal allowed her to walk free. She was determined to insist on her innocence rather than make a deal with prosecutors.

Now that Trump and others are accused using the RICO statute, I contacted Shani to ask her where her case stands today.

Shani wrote this account for the blog:

Most everyone I know is paying attention to the prosecution of former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies related to an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act makes that possible. I view the proceedings with mixed feelings, as I was falsely accused and convicted under that same RICO Act during the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) Cheating Trial in 2015.

My name is Shani Robinson and I’m a former first grade teacher. I was falsely accused of cheating on my students’ standardized tests by a former co-worker, whose story changed every time she was interrogated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), but who was ultimately offered immunity in exchange for her testimony. Former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. claimed that cheating was the result of a criminal conspiracy. He used RICO—a law devised to take down the American Mafia—to throw the book at educators. I was offered a plea deal that would have whittled my potential 25-year prison sentence down to community service. But I wasn’t willing to admit guilt for something I hadn’t done and/or falsely accuse someone else. I also never received bonus money (the basis for the RICO charges) because my school didn’t reach the district targets, which were APS’s testing goals that prosecutors claimed were the main culprit behind the cheating. There was no motive for me to cheat because as a first-grade teacher, my test scores didn’t count toward the district targets.

The APS cheating case was rife with corruption from the beginning. Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue sent an unprecedented number of GBI agents into APS in 2010. Teachers were pulled out of their classrooms and told to speak with these agents, and in most cases, there were no attorneys present. Agents used intimidation to elicit confessions and accusations: Some educators complained that GBI interrogators threatened that they could lose custody of their children if they didn’t cooperate. Educators who maintained their innocence were asked to sign pre-written statements saying they didn’t cheat. Some of the teachers who signed the forms were still accused of cheating and were charged with making false statements and writings, a felony, because they had followed instructions and signed the statements the GBI provided. At the same time Perdue’s investigation was underway in APS, he turned around and used the same questionable test scores in an application for President Obama’s Race to the Top program and won a $400 million federal grant.

The trial was like a circus. The judge called out prosecutors on multiple occasions for improperly influencing the jury. But the judge himself was often out of line too: from telling the jury a story about a man he caught masturbating, to having a private conversation with former District Attorney Paul Howard Jr., to pressuring my co-defendants and me to take plea deals. While the prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that took place was bad enough, the mainstream media helped fuel the fire to justify the RICO charges. Their overall narrative was that educators cheated to get bonus money. This patently contradicted the GBI investigative report, which stated bonus money provided “little incentive” to cheat. One of the lead investigators on the case also stated this when he testified during the trial. Despite the flaws, the jury convicted all but one of us that was on trial.

The problem with RICO is that it criminalizes such a broad range of conduct, including acts by many people who have nothing to do with each other. RICO was originally written to attack organized crime; using such a statute against educators for cheating on standardized tests is unconscionable. Since the 2001 enactment of No Child Left Behind, a federal policy that mandated standardized testing and imposed sanctions on schools that failed to meet unrealistic goals, The National Center for Fair and Open testing documented cheating cases in nearly 40 states and Washington, DC. Only in Atlanta did educators face felony charges saddled with decades-long prison sentences.

This RICO indictment has hung over my head for the past 10 years, leading to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The impact of PTSD and the fallout from the trial has taken a significant toll on my family. I have 2 small children, sothe thought of going to prison and being separated from them is agonizing. There are 6 defendants, including me, still appealing convictions. We’ve all been able to remain out of prison thus far due to being on appeal bonds. But the case has been handled so poorly; the entire appeals process restarted this year with no end in sight. Millions of tax players dollars have already been spent on this trial.

 Last year brought a ray of hope: Judge Jerry Baxter granted a new sentence for a principal who was convicted, enabling her to avoid prison and do community service instead. I’m hopeful that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Judge Jerry Baxter will come to the realization that RICO was misused in our case and find a peaceful resolution. Otherwise, the APS Cheating Trial could potentially be used as a playbook for other unjust prosecutions that clog up the legal system and waste public resources.