MACON WATER AUTHORITY

SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT OF INTERNAL INVESTIGATION

Matter: Claim of Diane Noble and related conduct of Desmond Brown

Date opened: December 9, 2021

Date of Report: March 3, 2022

By: K. David Cooke, Jr., Special Counsel to the MWA Board

1. Jonetta Fry family alleges Brown took insurance money for work never completed
and told Fry it was insurance fraud if she failed to pay him or hired a different contractor

Ms. Fry is an 84-year-old widow who lives on 1365 Holt Ave. in Macon1. She
became a member of Desmond Brown’s company Blue Armor, LLC, approximately a
year ago and pays $99 a year for the service. She did this at the suggestion of her
daughter, Jaretha Cardine, who was a classmate of Brown’s. For this fee, Brown was
supposed to maintain her yard as well as be available for maintenance and repairs.
Brown claimed that the contract that Fry signed with him gave him the exclusive right to
make repairs to Fry’s home stemming from insurance claims.
When a 2021 storm caused a limb to fall on her fence damaging it, State Farm
gave an estimate of $3000 for the repair. Fry’s son Leonard had a contractor friend who
agreed to make the repairs for $800. That contractor came out and cut and removed
limbs from the storm damage. However, Brown told Fry that she could not hire them for
the remainder of the repair because of her contract with Blue Armour. He told Fry it
would be insurance fraud if she did not give him the money or if she hired someone
else.
When State Farm gave the $3000 settlement to Ms. Fry, Brown allowed Fry to
pay $500 to the contractor for the work he’d already performed. Apparently, State Farm
had said that portion of the estimate was worth $500. Brown took the remainder of the
$3,000, but did not complete the repairs. According to Fry’s family2, Brown only did a
small portion of the work required, then stopped showing up. One time he gave the
excuse that his truck was broken. Another time he gave the excuse that he had a death
in the family. Regardless, he never returned and did not complete the work he was paid
to do.

When Fry saw the reports about Brown on the news, she called her daughter-in-
law Mrs. LaRonnica Stanley. Mrs. Stanley and her husband Leonard originally reached
out to journalist Liz Fabian who reported on the Desmond Brown investigation. Ms.
Fabian referred them to me and passed on their phone number. I interviewed Mr. and
Mrs. Stanley by telephone in preparation for this report.

According to Mrs. Stanley, Frye has documentation for her dealings with Brown
and State Farm, and she will email them to me when Stanley visits Fry.

2. Judge Williford found Brown in contempt of court for willfully failing to produce
financial records as ordered, finding his testimony “completely uncredible”

The undersigned’s last supplemental report detailed how Judge Verda Colvin
ordered Brown to pay $40,000 plus interest stemming from Courtney Baldwin’s claim

1 Interview of LaRonnica Stanley, daughter-in-law of Fry, February 22, 2022.

2 Id.
that Brown failed to deliver as promised after he invested in Brown’s company. The
Court later issued an order compelling Brown to respond to Baldwin’s post-judgement
discovery requests. Brown failed to abide by the Court’s order, and a hearing was held
on February 21, 2022, to determine, among other things, if Brown would be held in
contempt for failing to abide by the Court’s Order.
At the hearing, Brown ‘blame[d] his failure to comply with [the] Court’s February
5, 2020, order on ‘his attorney3’. [Brown] expressed bewilderment that ‘his attorney’ did
not file an Entry of Appearance in [the] case, did not appear for [the] hearing, and failed
to notify him that he needed to respond to discovery. Yet, [Brown]’s own exhibits clearly
show that the attorney [Brown] referenced was someone who declined to file a
bankruptcy on behalf of [Brown] due to his failure to show up at a scheduled meeting in
October of 2020 and his failure to provide all documents requested by his attorney.
Nothing in [Brown]’s exhibits showed that he is or was represented by an attorney.”
Noting that Brown ‘has not paid a single penny” to Baldwin since the Court
entered judgement against him4, Judge Williford went through Brown’s other “excuses”
for why he failed to comply with the Court’s order to produce the required documents.
Ultimately, Williford stated that because Brown’s “excuses” were “repeatedly
contradicted by his own documentary evidence, the Court finds that [Brown] is
completely uncredible and that he not only knew about the discovery requests in 2019,
but that he willfully failed to respond”. Based on this finding, Judge Williford ordered that
Brown be confined in the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center “until he files a
sufficient response” to the Plaintiff’s request for documents that he’d previously been
ordered to answer.
On February 25, 2022, Judge Williford released Brown from jail with the order
that he submit completed discovery responses to Baldwin by March 18, 2022, with a
report back hearing before the Court scheduled for March 24.

3. More come forward to allege Brown exploited their elderly family members

Even after Jonetta Fry’s family came forward, others called to report that Brown
had also exploited their elderly relatives as well. The Harpe5 family reported that after
their mother experienced cancer-related dementia, Brown influenced her to execute a
codicil cutting some of her children out of her will. After their mother died, they reported
finding multiple entries in their mother’s checkbook showing checks made out to Brown
for questionable loans.

3 February 21, 2022 Order on Plaintiff’s Motion for Attachment for Contempt and for the Imposition of
Sanctions by Judge Williford.
4 Id.
5 Interviews of Cheryl Harpe , Beverly Harpe, and Nancy Hicks conducted March 3, 2022,
 More disturbing was the report from Joseph Harris6. According to Harris,
Desmond Brown sued his grandmother, Elizabeth Danielly for payment for repairs to
her home even though Brown never provided the repairs he promised. A search of the
Macon-Bibb Civil and Magistrate Court online records shows that Brown’s company, D-
Money Enterprises, Inc, sued Danielly for $9,201.13 in a complaint filed December 21,
2017. Although the disposition date is shown as June 12, 2018, there is no judgment
entered.
According to Harris, Danielly was distraught by Brown’s complaint, and came to
the courthouse to deny his claim. After she arrived at the courthouse for the trial,
Danielly suffered a stroke and was carried away by ambulance. Unfortunately, she did
not recover, and the stroke proved to be fatal. Harris stated that Danielly’s family
believes that the stress of Brown’s claim led to the stroke that caused her death.

4. Effects of New Information on Findings and Recommendations

As stated in previous reports, prior acts do not impact the state ethics rules,
because they only prohibit conduct that occurs while in office. They do, however, tend to
show Brown’s course of conduct of failing to meet legal obligations to the detriment of
those who rely on him, in a manner that suggests “fraud”, the intent to “evade”
responsibility. or “defeat justice7”.
Brown’s dealings with Fry are part of a continuing course of conduct in which
Brown is alleged to have taken advantage of an elderly woman, by pressuring her to
hire him to make repairs after a storm, taking or seeking insurance proceeds for the
repair, and then failing to perform the work he promised. This is yet another incident that
could subject Brown to criminal liability for insurance fraud, theft, elder abuse, and
related charges8. The new claims by the Harpe and Harris families also fit this pattern,
and potentially could subject him to criminal liability as well.
With respect to the finding of contempt in the Baldwin case, although the acts
underlying the lawsuit stem from actions that occurred prior to Brown’s tenure as a
MWA Board Member, the Court’s finding of contempt for failing to comply with a court
order encompass ongoing violations that are continuing as of this writing. Georgia’s
Code of Ethics for Board Members prohibits “engag[ing] in conduct which is
unbecoming a member”9. While there is very little case law interpreting this statute,
willfully flouting and disobeying a court order in this fashion arguably constitutes such

6 Interview of Joseph Harris conducted March 3, 2022.

7 July 10, 2019 Order by Judge Verda Covlin.
8 Insurance fraud, theft, and elder abuse are all RICO predicates, and if a court found that he committed

these acts with the help of another, he could potentially face charges under Georgia’s Racketeering
statute. OCGA §§ 16-14-3 & 16-14-4.
9 OCGA § 45-10-3.
conduct, and the Board could refer this matter to the Governor to request Brown’s
removal.
Whether these latest revelations rise to that level on their own, or simply
corroborate and solidify a recommendation arising from the previous incidents, is a
matter for the Board to decide.

Respectfully submitted this 3rd day of March, 2022.

/s/ K. David Cooke, Jr.

K. David Cooke, Jr.
Special Counsel