ATLANTA — Atlanta’s police chief criticized the judge’s ruling for Young Slime Life criminal street gang member Christian Eppinger.
“The sentence that we saw, it looks great on paper, but there is zero accountability in there. There is zero punishment,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the issue is that Eppinger’s sentence of 40 years in prison plus 35 years of probation is to run at the same time as the 45-year sentence handed down previously by another judge in a probation revocation.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker defended the sentence as appropriate.
Eppinger was the last remaining defendant in the YSL gang racketeering case. Among his charges was attempted murder in the shooting of Atlanta officer David Rodgers in February 2022.
Rodgers was attempting to arrest Eppinger for armed robbery. The officer was shot six times but survived.
“He’s angry,” Schierbaum said of Rodgers. “I think he is surprised what happened in the courtroom of Fulton County, that this is the sentence given to someone that tried to take his life.”
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Whitaker told Winne by phone that her sentencing of Eppinger is by far the lengthiest sentence she has handed out in the massive YSL gang racketeering case.
She also added that ‘the safety of the community is a consideration in any sentence” she hands down, and this one will keep him behind bars for 40 years, a stiff sentence for a 25-year-old with one prior felony conviction.
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Whitaker said she worked as a prosecutor for more than 20 years, part of that time as colleagues with Willis before either was elected to their current offices.
In crafting Eppinger’s sentence in the YSL case, Whitaker said she considered that the lengthy probation revocation he was already serving was essentially already a punishment for the same crimes for which she sentenced him Monday.
Attorney Noah Pines said, “There’s no question that Judge Whitaker is tough on crime. She is a very fair judge, but she’s a very tough judge when it comes to sentencing. There’s not question about that.”
Hylton said she played dashcam and bodycam video from Eppinger’s shooting of Rodgers in the hearing Monday.
Eppinger entered a non-negotiated guilty plea to attempted murder, RICO conspiracy and more as what’s called an Alford plea, meaning he decided pleading guilty was in his best interest but he doesn’t admit to the crimes.
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