Alleged E-Mail Threats Land Cobb Braves Critic in Jail

An East Cobb lawyer who was critical of the deal to move the Atlanta Braves to Cobb County and believed a small yard fire at her home was retaliation from pro-move advocates has been arrested and charged with sending harassing communications, a warrant states.

Susan McCoy allegedly sent 56 “harassing and intimidating” e-mails to Michael Paris and James Touchton between Aug. 7 and Oct. 20 this year. McCoy blames the men for a Sept. 18, 2014 yard fire which occurred on her property shortly after she spoke out against the Braves deal. The fire was suspicious in nature, said Cobb County fire investigators at the time.

Paris is the CEO of the non-profit Council for Quality Growth, while Touchton serves as the organization’s director of policy and government affairs.

The Council for Quality Growth released this statement:

“We are saddened and disturbed by the allegations from the original incident and since. They are all unfounded, and we do not feel it appropriate to comment further.”

Patch has reached out to McCoy but has not been contacted by her or anyone representing her.

“Your setting my fence and garden on fire is the mental, emotional, and spiritual equivalent of my sitting behind my replaced fence and waiting for you to drive by so that I can practice my target shooting,” McCoy allegedly wrote in an e-mail to Paris cited in the warrant.

“Remember, you have to drive past my home to get out of the neighborhood, I don’t have to drive past yours,” the same e-mail allegedly says.

An Aug. 7 e-mail from McCoy to Touchton allegedly reads, in part: “Does being BFF (best friend forever) with the Attorney General of Georgia get a free pass on a revenge arson committed at my home while my family was sleeping?”

McCoy is accused of sending 11 threatening communications to Attorney General Sam Olens and his family between Oct. 15 and Oct. 19, the Marietta Daily Journal reports.

On Sept. 9, police visited McCoy and ordered her to cease contacting Paris and Touchton, but the warrant states that McCoy continued sending threatening e-mails. An e-mail allegedly sent by McCoy the day after the meeting reads in part: “I told the kind officers that came to my home that I would stop sending emails, but I’m a woman lawyer and it’s my prerogative to change my mind after reading the law.”

The warrant says that McCoy sent a further 26 e-mails to Paris and Touchton after police visited her. An Oct. 17 e-mail letter allegedly says, “I’ve tried so hard to make it for myself and for my family after you lit my yard on fire after we rebuilt from it. If I can’t make it, you are coming with me.”

McCoy filed a complaint with the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission in 2014, requesting the body take a closer look at Cobb County’s validation of $397 million in bonds to help finance the construction of SunTrust Park.

She has been a vocal critic of the county’s rush to approve the stadium project, saying that Cobb leaders spent more time deliberating on backyard chickens than they did weighing the pros and cons of the stadium deal.

McCoy was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of harassing communications and one count of stalking, Cobb County jail records show. She was released after posting $7,500 bond.