BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News is helping the family of an 83-year-old woman who ended up in jail by mistake get answers.
Cobb County District Attorney Sonya Allen says she spent an entire day with her team to determine what went wrong.
“My goal is to figure out how it happened, why it happened, and what we can do to fix the issue,” Allen told Channel 2’s Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell after learning about a critical error that the previous administration made.
That mistake landed 83-year-old Alice Cordell in a holding cell for six hours for a crime she didn’t commit. She was wrongfully arrested in Bartow County on drug trafficking charges.
The DA’s office says an Alica Cordell’s name should have been on the indictment, not Alice Cordell.
“Alice Cordell is the person whose name got clicked and then added to the indictment. So, it was a clerical mistake, but everything from that mistake generated through technology after the fact, so that’s how the bench warrant was issued under Alice Cordell’s name,” Allen said.
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Allen says she is making changes to the process to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“I stayed up last night just thinking about it. I called our chief late last night,” Allen said.
On Tuesday, Newell shared that news with Cordell’s family.
“You’ve done a real good job. You’ve done more than we were able to get. There’s no way we would have been able to talk to the DA like you did. We’re just happy that it’s going to be over,” Alice’s son David Cordell said.
Allen said in addition to changing the process to prevent this from happening again, she is also trying to get Alice Cordell’s name removed from the case. The family meanwhile is trying to get Alice’s mugshot removed from crime watch pages on Facebook.
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