Former Habersham County deputy Nikki Autry was indicted by a federal grand jury this week in relation to the botched 2014 Cornelia drug raid that left a toddler badly injured.
Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn announced the indictment Tuesday, “Our criminal justice system depends upon our police officers’ sworn duty to present facts truthfully and accurately, there is no arrest that is worth selling out the integrity of our law enforcement officers,”
The indictment accuses Autry of falsely swearing that an informant made a drug buy at a house on Lakeview Heights Circle in Cornelia in order to get a no-knock search warrant. Officers from a regional drug task force then used that warrant to enter the home. They threw in a flash-bang grenade that landed close to Bounkham Phonesavanh, badly burning the child.
Read the Indictment
“In this case, Autry is charged with making false statements to a judge in order to obtain search and arrest warrants,” Horn says. “Without her false statements, there was no probable cause to search the premises for drugs or to make the arrest. And in this case, the consequences of the unlawful search were tragic.”
The indictment charges Autry with four counts of civil rights violations for “willfully depriving the occupants of the residence of their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by a police officer”
This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the District Attorney’s Office of the Mountain Judicial Circuit.
