Frederick Richardson faced a magistrate judge this week for allegedly killing Ashley “A.J.” Jewell. Jewell was the former fiancé of Kandi Burruss who is the newest member of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. He reportedly died several hours after fighting Richardson in the parking lot of an Atlanta strip club.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has the story.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Sylvia McCoy ordered that Richardson be held without bond until his next court appearance on October 20 due to the nature of the crime. Richardson’s attorney, Dennis Scheib, argued that the charge of voluntary manslaughter should be dismissed, since the medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death. Police believe the two men got into a disagreement on Friday over a business decision at the strip club, Body Tap, which then escalated into a fight in the parking lot. Jewell died several hours later at Piedmont Hospital. Richardson sustained a broken finger.
Richardson had been the general manager at the club since May, and Jewell was seeking to buy an interest in the club. Scheib believes that Jewell started the original argument, and that sometime prior to the fight Jewell had brandished a handgun and pulled the slide back in front of Richardson while in Richardson’s office. Scheib also believes that later in the day Jewell started the fight in the parking lot, and that after the fight was over, Jewell walked away under his own power. While police believe the parking lot fight led to the death of Jewell, Scheib maintains that no one knows what killed him.
Our criminal defense attorneys have successfully defended many clients who have been charged with voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is essentially several of the same elements as a murder charge, except that the defendant acts under a sudden and irresistible passion as the result of some provocation. In many voluntary manslaughter cases, a good criminal defense attorney will argue that the defendant acted in self-defense of himself or others. Under Georgia law, a successful self-defense claim justifies a death that may have occurred as the result of the defendant’s actions.
Pate & Brody is an accomplished Georgia law firm with offices in Atlanta, Macon and Madison. Our lawyers are dedicated to pursuing justice for people charged with serious crimes. We have successfully represented clients facing serious federal criminal charges and state criminal charges in courts across Georgia. Our lawyers have been recognized on the list of Georgia’s “Super Lawyers”, and included among Georgia’s “Legal Elite” by Georgia Trend Magazine. Page Pate was recently the Chairman of the Criminal Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association.
