Sidney Powell, one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in Georgia election conspiracy case, pleads guilty

A second co-defendant with Donald Trump in the Georgia election conspiracy case, Sidney Powell, pleaded guilty Thursday to a half-dozen misdemeanors dealing with a conspiracy to interfere in the 2020 election.

Legal experts said Powell's central role in the conspiracy, as an election lawyer who baselessly claimed widespread election fraud in 2020, could have an impact on other defendants charged in the alleged racketeering conspiracy that sought to keep Trump in power. Powell is the second co-defendant to plead guilty in the case, after bail bondsman Scott Hall.

“Miss Powell is at the vortex, the center, the hub of the alleged conspiracy,” said Gene Rossi, who handled Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations cases in his three decades as a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official. “She will be a phenomenal witness for the government because she was at strategic meetings, part of important conversations and she was a leader in implementing the scheme to discredit the lawful election of Joe Biden.”

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to overturn the election so Trump could remain in power. She was charged with tampering with election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft by taking and five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. Powell agreed to testify in future trials in exchange for serving six years of probation, a $6,000 fine and paying restitution of $2,700.

Powell’s agreement fell under Georgia's First Offender Act, which will allow her to "honestly say" she was never convicted of the charges if she successfully completes her probation and is discharged, according to prosecutor Daysha Young. If Powell violates the terms of her first-offender sentence or commits another offense while on probation, her first-offender status could be revoked and she could be resentenced to the maximum, Young said.

Powell is one of 19 co-defendants charged in the case, which alleged a broad racketeering conspiracy. Other portions of the conspiracy included the recruitment of fake presidential electors to vote for Trump despite President Joe Biden winning Georgia, lying about election results to state officials and in court records, and soliciting public officials to violate their oaths of office.

Legal experts said Powell's agreement to testify against others in the case is "very significant" because she dealt at length with Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others charged in the conspiracy.

"I think it's very significant because she is one of the people who was closest to Trump in many of these alleged nefarious activities, and as part of the agreement, she must testify truthfully against Trump as well as the other defendants,' said John Banzhaf, a George Washington University law professor who has been following the case closely. "So it is a major victory for Fani Willis and certainly a major concern for Trump."

Powell worked closely with major figures in the case. She participated in a news conference with Giuliani and co-defendant Jenna Ellis at the Republican National Committee portraying baseless allegations of election in November 2020. Powell met with Trump at the White House, including on Dec. 18, 2020, to discuss having the military seize voting machines, which Trump didn't order.

"Given the central role she played in public promotion of false claims of election fraud, it seems likely that she has significant information about the role of her co-defendants," said Alexander Reinert, a Benjamin Cardozo School of Law professor.

Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor now at Ford O’Brien Landy, called it a “very, very smart move” for Powell to pay a fine, avoid jail and keep her law license.

“Rudy Giuliani, as if he doesn't have enough to worry about, should be very worried,” O’Brien said. “Remember those press conferences the two  gave on all their ‘evidence’ of election interference?”

Rossie said Powell's guilty plea may persuade others to cooperate with prosecutors, turning "the slippery slope into a luge when it comes to cooperators."

The other 17 co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty. Powell’s guilty plea came days before her trial was scheduled to begin Monday. Another co-defendant, lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who is charged with developing the scheme to recruit fake electors, still has a trial scheduled for Monday.

While Powell was involved in a separate part of the conspiracy from Chesebro, Banzhaf said her guilty plea could affect him because he continues to face charges with a five-year minimum sentence and no opportunity for a federal pardon.

"I think it's also likely to convince Chesebro because he's in exactly the same boat," Banzhaf said. "Also, it's going to leave him standing alone in the courtroom. If the two of them were tried together at least they have each other, so to speak, a little bit of mutual support. Now he's going to be on his own and his attorney's going to have to work twice as hard."

Prosecutors initially charged Powell with conspiring with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there.

The indictment said an unnamed person sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sidney Powell, Trump co-defendant, pleads guilty to election conspiracy