ATLANTA — Prosecutors have reached a plea deal with two of the three white men facing federal hate-crimes charges for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, the Black man who was chased through a Georgia neighborhood and fatally shot, court documents show.
But Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, denounced the pleas. In an interview late Sunday, Cooper-Jones said of the federal prosecutors: “They went behind my back. I’m totally, totally upset. My anxiety is over the roof.”
She said that federal officials had asked her earlier if she approved of a deal, and that she had told them no. Cooper-Jones said she would try to persuade a judge to reject the plea agreements in a hearing Monday morning.
A jury in a Georgia state court found the three men — Gregory McMichael, 66, his son Travis McMichael, 35; and William Bryan, 52 — guilty of murder in November and sentenced them to life in prison this month. All three men were set to stand trial beginning Feb. 7 in federal court on hate-crime charges and attempted kidnapping, for which they faced possible additional life sentences. Travis McMichael, who fired a shotgun at Arbery, also faced a weapons charge.
On Sunday, federal prosecutors filed notice in U.S. District Court asking a judge to approve plea agreements for the McMichaels. Specific details about the plea deals were not included in the court filings. Nor was there any indication that an agreement had been struck with Bryan, who was involved in chasing Arbery through the neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, in February 2020.