Sidney Powell, who grew up in NC, pleads guilty in Trump’s election interference case

Attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday morning for the part she played in trying to overturn the election of President Joe Biden.

Powell, 68, appeared in Fulton County, Georgia, on Thursday morning, where she announced her guilty plea to six misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with election duties.

She is sentenced to six years probation, a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution. She also must offer truthful testimony in future proceedings against other defendants in the case and write an apology to the people of Georgia.

Fulton County Executive District Attorney Daysha Young told Judge Scott McAfee that between Dec. 1, 2020 and Jan. 7, 2021, Powell and her co-defendents conspired to use Coffee County Election Supervisor Misty Hampton’s position to gain access to election machines to tamper with ballot markers, remove software and data and examine personal voting records, among other things.

Powell, who served as one of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers following his 2020 election loss, grew up in Raleigh and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. She sat in the courtroom Thursday morning, appearing composed and answering each question the judge or district attorney asked with yes or no answers. She once cracked a joke about her age, despite what she described as a youthful appearance.

Powell was one of 19 people charged in Fulton County for trying to overturn the 2020 election. So was Mark Meadows, who once represented North Carolina’s far southwestern mountain counties in Congress. Meadows left Congress to work as Trump’s chief of staff toward the end of Trump’s presidency.

Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four cases filed over less than five months this year. The Fulton County case was the first time Powell faced charges alongside Trump.

She is believed to be an unnamed co-defendent in a second case out of Washington, where Trump is accused of spreading fraudulent conspiracy theories in an attempt to retain the presidency.

On Thursday, the judge allowed Powell to plead as a first-time offender, which means that eventually her conviction could be expunged from her record.

Without a plea deal, Powell could have spent six years in prison.

The judge also ordered Powell not to speak to the media, her co-defendents or other witnesses in the case until the case is concluded in its entirety.