LaFAYETTE, Ga. - After spending several hours Wednesday trying to straighten out dueling accusations between a Rossville former property owner and one of his former tenants, a judge decided to arrest both of them.
At the end of the hearing in Walker County Magistrate Court, Judge Barrett Whittemore charged Peerless Mill property manager Les Coffey with stealing from Tek-Mak employees, his former tenants at the mill.
Whittemore also charged David Rowan, former president of Tek-Mak, with breaking padlocks on the mill and entering the building after Coffey evicted the company.
Both say they were falsely charged.
"We'll win this case in jury trial," Coffey said. "I'm not worried about it."
"I don't think for a second the solicitor will pick this up," Rowan said. "I didn't do anything."
Coffey was charged with theft by taking and Rowan with three counts of misdemeanor criminal trespass and one count of interference with property. Both were arrested, booked and released.
After Coffey applied for warrants in July to arrest Rowan and two other Tek-Mak employees - whose cases were dismissed during the hearing - Rossville police filed a warrant for Coffey's arrest in August.
During the hearing, tempers clashed as Coffey tried to prove that Tek-Mak employees were stealing from him. He also accused Rossville Police Chief Sid Adams of helping Tek-Mak in the theft and wants him arrested.
Rowan claims Coffey was the one stealing from Tek-Mak.
The argument centered on several pieces of Tek-Mak equipment that were inside the mill after Coffey padlocked it. In the hearing, Coffey said Tek-Mak had abandoned the equipment and that's why he cut it up and sold it for scrap metal.
But Whittemore said testimony proved Coffey had locked his former tenants out of the mill and they couldn't get to the equipment to remove it.
Coffey also claimed that Adams helped Tek-Mak employees, including Rowan, break into the mill.
On Wednesday after the hearing, Adams called the claims "ridiculous" and said he was only helping Tek-Mak employees recover their own equipment.
In his testimony Wednesday, Adams admitted he didn't have a warrant or a court order to be on the property when he helped Tek-Mak employees in April 2009.
Coffey said after the hearing that he would use Adams' testimony to get a warrant against the chief. He tried to get Adams arrested in August when he filled out warrant paperwork against the Tek-Mak employees, but the warrant application against Adams was sent back because a magistrate court can't hear accusations against a police officer. Such cases only can be heard in Superior Court.
This is not the first time Coffey and Tek-Mak have clashed.
In early 2009, when Tek-Mak was still a tenant in Peerless Mill, Coffey was charged with criminal trespassing after he violated a court order telling him to stay out of tenants' rented offices and not to bother any of their employees, court records show. He was acquitted in a jury trial.
The 27-acre Peerless Mill has been a point of contention between the city and Coffey since 2007.
Coffey hasn't paid property tax since 2008 on the mill, valued by the city at almost $3 million, city officials say. But Coffey claims the city owes him money for sewage services he provides to Rossville.