🌱 Smyrna Man Charged For Bribery/Visa Fraud + Babysitter Arrested

Hey, friends. It's me, Danielle Fallon-O'Leary, your host of the Smyrna-Vinings Patch newsletter — here to explain everything you need to know about what's happening in town.

But first, today's weather:

A shower and thunderstorm. High: 69 Low: 52.

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Here are the top three stories in Smyrna-Vinings today:

1. Orlando Clark, a 57-year-old former military contractor of Smyrna, was found guilty of participating in a bribery scheme and visa fraud. According to a stayement from the Justice Department, Clark has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after conspiring with Todd Coleman, an analyst at a different American company, to receive roughly $400,000 in bribes from an Afghan company. The two men helped to secure reconstruction contracts at an inflated value. To legitimize large wire transfers from Afghanistan, Clark and Coleman set up bank accounts for fake companies in Georgia. He filed invoices for a phony car exporting business in the UAE, according to court documents. Coleman has been sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. (Stripes)
2. A man has been arrested after a boy was found wandering around alone near a busy road in Cobb County on Tuesday. Neighbor Kayla Jones in the apartment complex saw and stopped the child from going into the road. She and some other neighbors knocked on some doors to see if they could find the child's parents, but with no luck called the police. Aguilar Martinez was supposed to be babysitting the child while his mother was grocery shopping. He has since been arrested and charged with cruelty to children. This isn't the first incident like this near Atlanta Road — many neighbors say they have seen young kids wandering out near the road before, and one woman who works in the area has seen an adult hit by a car on that road. (Microsoft Start News)
3. Yamaha will add 100+ jobs with their new marine innovation center in nearby Kennesaw. This further expansion will increase Yamaha's presence in Georgia and will house multiple different divisions of their marine manufacturing such as the Yamaha Marine Connected Division, Yamaha U.S. Marine Development, Yamaha Marine Product Management, and Yamaha Marine Technical Marketing in a 75,280 square-foot facility. Governor Brian Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Apr. 12, marking the opening of the facility. Yamaha believes Georgia to be a great place to grow business and add more jobs, and they look to work with educational institutions to employ engineers for their new facility. (Yahoo Finance)

Events in and around Smyrna-Vinings:

April 14

• Rain Barrel Workshop, At Smyrna Public Library (9:30 AM)

April 15

• Acworth Art Fest, At Historic Downtown in Acworth (10:00 AM)

From my notebook:

• During National Telecommunicators Appreciation Week, the Smyrna Public Safety Foundation thanked Supervisor Rutzen for all that she does for the city of Smyrna. Rutzen started her career in Smyrna in 2015 and has since moved up the ranks all the way to a supervisor. (Smyrna Public Safety Foundation via Facebook)
• In case you missed it: The Smyrna Police Department has released a traffic impact notice for Apr. 15 at several intersections around City Hall and along Atlanta Road. The delay will be due to the annual Jonquil City Jog. Access at several intersections will be temporarily delayed between 7:45 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. Roads will reopen following all the activities of the jog. (Smyrna Police Department via Facebook)
• The Friends of Smyrna Library have volunteer opportunities for their Spring Book Sale. There are over 200 volunteer slots available from Apr. 15 to May 22. (Friends of Smyrna Library via Facebook)

More from our sponsors — thanks for supporting local news!

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• Atlanta Dogwood Festival VIP Experience (April 15)
• ✨Aura Reading & Chakra Balancing✨ (April 15)
• CME Schubert Trio - Piano, Violin & Cello (April 15)
• What's on the Horizon | New Hope for Alzheimer's Treatment (April 18)
• Clinton Nature Preserve Exploration Challenge Group Hike (May 13)
• Add your event

That's it for today! See you all tomorrow morning for another update.

— Danielle Fallon-O'Leary

About me: Danielle Fallon-O’Leary is a content manager with content creation agency Lightning Media Partners and assists Patch.com with community newsletter curation. Danielle also holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders and works part-time as a pediatric speech therapist.