Sen. Don Balfour acquitted of all charges | Gwinnett Daily Post

ATLANTA — Vicki Hamilton is a firecracker of a foreperson.

Hair drawn back tightly and body bundled up inside a red winter coat, the diminuitive woman spoke confidently — and loudly — to a swarm of reporters outside the Fulton County courthouse Thursday, telling them why she and her fellow jurors had reached a not guilty verdict.

The defendant they had just acquitted was state Sen. Don Balfour.

“When you started looking at the dollar amounts of the charges, you came to see, ‘Are we really here to talk about this? Couldn’t this have been resolved in a different way?’” Hamilton said.

Balfour, a Republican from Snellville, was indicted last year on 18 separate counts, most alleging that he filed for and received mileage and per diem reimbursements to which he wasn’t entitled. The longtime senator and his defense team maintained all along that the reimbursements — totalling less than $3,000 over a five-year period — were mistakes and the product of poor record keeping.

After deliberating for about 3.5 hours between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, Hamilton and 11 other members of the jury agreed.

Flanked by friends, family and his attorneys, Balfour spoke passionately about his acquittal.

“I have spent 14 months of my life going through hell,” he said. “Fourteen months. And not just me. My wife, my family, my name … I want to thank the jury for what I would call the wisdom of Solomon, and for figuring out what the right thing to do is.”

Defense attorney Ken Hodges was less diplomatic.

“I think you all saw for the last three days while we were in court what a tremendous waste of the taxpayer money we’ve gone through,” Hodges said. “We’ve had multiple agencies, multiple GBI agents, multiple assistant attorney generals and Sam Olens himself, who was driving this train. And the taxpayers ought to be offended. I’m offended.”

He continued, lashing out at Olens, the state’s attorney general.

“If a prosecutor was given the option to make a decision, this case never would’ve been brought,” Hodges, a former prosecutor, said. “This is being fueled by somebody that wants to run for governor and didn’t have the adequate experience to know that this wasn’t a crime.”

The defense asserted all week that the charges brought against Balfour were politically motivated.