Records show House District 151 candidate had legal issues in 2004

MORGAN — The Albany Herald has obtained court documents that show independent House District 151 candidate Kenneth Zachary Jr. pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges in 2004, well past the time that officials with the state Democratic Party said Zachary had legal issues.

Zachary, 46, the pastor of three small Southwest Georgia churches and a former Arlington City Council member, announced his independent candidacy for the state House seat after Democrat James Williams, a former Albany police officer, was disqualified from running for the seat held for 33 years by Cuthbert Republican Gerald Greene.

Williams had been certified as a candidate for the HD 151 seat, but Greene challenged his candidacy based on residency. Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office ruled that Williams was ineligible to run because he did not live in the district, and an administrative law judge and Fulton Superior Court presiding judge upheld Kemp’s ruling.

As an independent candidate, Zachary was required to obtain certifiable signatures of 5 percent of the active voters in the district by mid-July, a total of 1,487 signatures. Zachary turned in petitions with just short of 3,000 signatures, and Kemp’s office verified the signatures on Aug. 12.

“Southwest Georgia’s enthusiasm for my campaign is both humbling and inspiring,” Zachary said after his candidacy was confirmed. “I know the people of this community are ready for a leader who will fight to bring health care and jobs to thousands of our residents by working to expand Medicaid.

“Voters deserve a choice at the ballot box, and I plan on winning their support with a platform of strong Democratic values.”

Shortly after he announced his independent candidacy, The Herald confirmed that Zachary had recently been disqualified in his attempt to run for sheriff of Calhoun County against incumbent Josh Hilton. Zachary’s attorney in that ruling, Maurice King of Albany, said Zachary was appealing a judge’s ruling that incidences of “moral turpitude” disqualified Zachary as a candidate for the sheriff’s office.

King said Zachary was dropping that appeal to run for the HD 151 seat. The attorney noted that requirements for a House of Representatives run included “no conviction of a felony in the last 10 years.” The state Democratic Party downplayed Zachary’s previous legal troubles, saying he had issues “in his 20s,” adding that he had since served in the military, as a law enforcement officer, as an Arlington city official and as a pastor.

“Rev. Kenneth Zachary made a mistake in his 20s and later served his country and state as an Army vet, city councilman, law enforcement officer and pastor,” Georgia Democratic Party Communications Director Michael Smith said in an email to The Albany Herald. “I’d say that’s quite an impressive record of public service.”

But court documents obtained by The Herald show that Zachary, at age 34, pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in 2004. He was indicted by a Dougherty County Grand Jury in May 2004 on a charge of terroristic threats in connection to an incident in which he was accused of throwing eggs at a car, acting “in disregard of the risk of causing such terror and inconvenience” in the incident that involved a woman and two small children, ages 4 and 6. The charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

The Herald also obtained documents showing that Zachary, when he was in his 20s, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of writing bad checks and pleaded no-contest to theft by conversion ($644.85 in used clothing and equipment taken from the Georgia National Guard).

Hilton, who challenged Zachary’s candidacy in Calhoun County after being informed of Zachary’s legal issues, said his research indicated a pattern of behavior by the would-be candidate.

“If you’re convicted of any crimes of moral turpitude, state law says you can’t run for the sheriff’s office,” Hilton told The Herald. “Someone told me I should call law enforcement agencies in the area — Columbus, Camilla, Albany, Early County, Randolph County, different places — when Mr. Zachary qualified, so I did. When these past charges kept popping up, I challenged his candidacy.”

Told that the state Democratic Party said that Zachary’s legal issues went back only to when he was in his 20s, Hilton said, “I’m certain there were issues in Dougherty County in the early 2000s.”

Officials with the state Democratic Party n Monday dismissed the 2004 incident as a “stupid decision.”

“The charges used to disqualify Rev. Zachary (from the Calhoun sheriff’s race) were the check-kiting charges and that is what we addressed,” Priyanka Mantha, an aide with the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement to The Herald. “We had become aware of the egg-throwing incident. While he does not condone his behavior or attempt to excuse it, even the district attorney realized that at best he was involved in disorderly conduct, and he admitted to such.

“Neither the candidate for sheriff who petitioned against him nor Rev. Zachary found this charge of throwing eggs at a car to be disqualifying actions from public, particularly a stupid decision made during an argument more than a decade ago.”

Greene said that he wants to “let the facts speak for themselves” in the ongoing campaign.

“I’m going to run my campaign like I’ve always run it, above-board,” Greene said. “We’ll let the people in the district decide who they want representing them.”

Greene added, though, that he resents “outsiders” trying to turn the HD 151 campaign into one that focuses on race. Georgia Democrats have targeted the district because it is the only one in the state with a majority African-American population (53 percent) represented by a Republican. Greene served as a Democrat for 27 years before changing to the Republican Party.

“Race has never been an issue in my 33 years in this office,” Greene said. “It wasn’t about race in 2014 when I ran against (Dawson NAACP official) Ezekial Holley. Even then, it was about the issues that impact the people of this district.

“This time, though, outsiders have come in and tried to make this about things that have nothing to do with Southwest Georgia. I’ve heard from many people, black and white, who say it’s bad when outsiders come into their community and try to tell them how to vote. These are (Democratic Party representatives) from Atlanta who don’t even know the area. I challenge anyone to check my record and find where I’ve voted against something that was best for my district.”

Attempts to contact Zachary for comment were unsuccessful.