Excerpt from:

Gwinnett Daily Post
Vol. 27, No. 53
Nov.16, 1996

A former Gwinnett County police officer convicted of murder and armed robbery is seeking the help of a little known foundation set up to assist police officers in trouble with the law.

Mike Chapel escaped the death penalty, but in 1995 was sentenced to two life sentences plus five years in prison for the murder and armed robbery of Emogene Thompson of Sugar Hill in 1993.

He currently is serving time in Reidsville, a maximum security prison. On Friday, The National Police Defense Foundation announced it is supporting an effort to win a new trial for Chapel. Randy Mott, an attorney in Washington, D.C., and Boris Korczak, an investigator with the Foundation, have been assigned to the case. The Foundation claims there is new evidence, and Mott is planning to file a motion for a new trial, according to a press release.

"The new trial will be based on dramatic, newly discovered evidence that Mike Chapel is innocent," said Mott in the release.

But neither Mott nor Korczak would comment on what that evidence might be. They claim to have found who is responsible for the murder, but refuse to identify that person.

District attorney Danny Porter, who successfully prosecuted Chapel, is skeptical of the "new evidence" the Foundation says it has.

"They are not prepared to discuss [the new evidence] with the press, and they haven't come to me with information, and they haven't made it known to the police department," said Porter. "All of that tells me they don't know what they are talking about. If that was true, then why don't they bring it forward? This tells me they are just trying to get some publicity out of the case for their own reasons. Most of the claims they are making that undermine his -guilt have! already been addressed and adjudicated. "Chapel's whole existence was this ,soldier of fortune existence,' and now longer the lead attorney on the case.

"Mike [Chapel] has not notified me that anyone else is the lead counsel, but that doesn't mean he won't," Moore said. "It is my understanding that Mike wanted me to stay on the case and work with them."

Moore said that if Chapel wants Mott to act as his counsel, that is fine as well. Mott will have to file a petition with the judge in order to represent Chapel, since he is not a Georgia lawyer. That should not be a problem, Moore said.

"I'm very confident an innocent man has been in jail for three years who had nothing to do with this," said Mott.

The Foundation, he said, is set up to help police officers who are falsely accused of crimes.

"They don't take a case unless they feel there is a lot of merit to it:' said Mott. "They are not in the business of representing dirty cops." , Mott said he hopes to file a motion for a new trial within the next 60 days. "We thought it was important that folks know the case is not over and we are giving it a hard charge," he said.

The Foundation, made up of law enforcement and intelligence officers, both current and former, operates on funds donated to it. They have set up a defense fund for Chapel, according to the press release.

Thompson was shot twice in the head and robbed of $7,000 as she sat in her car at a Sugar Hill muffler shop on April 15, 1993.

BACK