Columbus public defender arrested for meth. Can she still work? Who will prosecute her?
Columbus authorities say they’re still investigating the case of a public defender arrested for methamphetamine possession Friday at a northside motel.
Two people were shot outside the same motel that day, but investigators so far have not said whether the two incidents are related, and the available police reports have no information linking them.
The attorney with the public defender’s office is Sirena Saunders, 43, identified as Sirena Lourdes Saunders in jail records and Sirena Diazverso Saunders in police reports. Besides possessing meth, she’s accused of having a gun during the commission of a felony and of having a drug-related object, a smoking pipe, a misdemeanor.
Her arrest report said she had a room at the Extended Stay America, 1721 Rollins Way, where officers found .5 grams of meth in the room and .2 grams in her purse. They also found the pipe and a gun in the room, they reported.
She was booked into the Muscogee County Jail at 2:10 p.m., Friday, and released Saturday at 12:36 p.m..Her bonds were set at $5,000 each for felony meth possession and having a gun during a crime, and $250 on the misdemeanor.
Police report that a man and woman, each 44, also were arrested on the same meth and drug-related object charges stemming from what police found in the room, but their connection to the case otherwise was unclear.
So far Saunders remains an attorney in good standing with the Georgia bar, pending the outcome of her case. Her status as a public defender also has not yet changed, though the investigation could affect that.
“We cannot comment right now because there’s an investigation ongoing,” Jose Guzman, the chief deputy public defender, said Wednesday.
Another question is whether local judges and prosecutors can handle the case with no apparent conflict of interest, as it involves a lawyer who regularly conducted business with them.
The judges may choose to recuse themselves, in Saunders’ case.
Don Kelly, the judicial circuit’s acting district attorney while DA Stacey Jackson is out on medical leave, said the case so far remains with his office, but that could change.
“That’s a decision we’ll make down the road,” he said. “I don’t see a clear-cut conflict for the whole office.”
Saunders’ case likely would go to a prosecutor who hasn’t faced her in court, to avoid the “appearance of impropriety,” Kelly said.
Saunders had just finished a murder trial, before her arrest, with her client found guilty. The prosecutors were Ray Daniel and Austin Hammock.
Though the Georgia bar association website says Saunders is “active in good standing,” the Alabama bar association’s site says the University of Alabama law school graduate is “voluntarily inactive” there.
She was admitted to the bar in 2008 in Alabama, and in 2010 in Georgia.
The shooting
Columbus police went to the extended stay motel Friday morning after two gunshot victims showed up at St. Francis hospital at 6:39 a.m., with one reporting they were shot in the motel parking lot.
A woman, 23, was hit in the head, and listed in critical condition. A man, 32, was wounded in the thigh.
A police report said the victims were acquainted with the two men accused in the shooting. Those suspects had not been captured Wednesday.
They are:
Kenneth Ray Henderson, 57, wanted for two counts of aggravated assault and one each of using a firearm to commit a crime and being a convicted felon with a firearm.
Jeremy Dewayne Spradley, 39, charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one of using a gun to commit a crime.
“The female victim was being assaulted by two male suspects while in the parking lot, when the male victim attempted to assist her and they both were shot,” Columbus police said in a news release.
A police report said Spradley had homes on Dawson Street and Chalfonte Drive, and Henderson lived on Bradley Road in Fort Mitchell, Alabama.
The police report had no additional details of what transpired.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to contact Sgt. Kelly Phillips at 706-225-4408 or kphillips@columbusga.org.
