By Matt Agorist

Worth County, GA — In June, violated children and furious parents filed a massive lawsuit after the Worth County Sheriff’s office conducted an illegal search of 900 students, sexually abusing multiple children in the process. Now, after nearly half a year, a grand jury has finally indicted the people responsible for this heinous deprivation of rights.

A south Georgia grand jury indicted Worth County Sheriff Jeff Hobby on Tuesday for sexual battery, false imprisonment and violation of oath of office after he ordered a school-wide search of hundreds of high school students. Deputies allegedly touched girls vaginas and breasts and groped boys in their groin area during the search at the Worth County High School April 14, reports RARE. 

Two of Hobby’s deputies were also indicted this week in connection with the case.

Norman Crowe Jr., Hobby’s attorney claims the sheriff is innocent and conducted no searches.

“The sheriff’s position is that he’s not guilty,” Crowe said. “He’s committed no crime.”

As the Free Thought Project previously reported, an Atlanta attorney is now representing multiple students who were subjected to invasive and outright horrifying body searches during a mass — and warrantless — search for drugs at a South Georgia high school. Attorney Mark Begnaud, who filed the class-action lawsuit, called out the sheriff for conducting “900 illegal, suspicionless searches.”

“This was a textbook definition of overreach,” said Begnaud. “They pulled 900 students out of class. They did full, hands-on body searches.”

To highlight the sheer unnecessary police state tactics of the tyrannical Worth County Sheriff Jeff Hobby and his deputies — not a single bit of contraband was found.

As the Daily Report notes, Begnaud said the suit seeks certification as a class action on behalf of every student who was searched. It also asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a declaratory judgment that a law enforcement officer violates a student’s constitutional rights when he conducts a body search absent either voluntary consent or an individualized suspicion that the student has broken the law. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams.

On April 14, when the students of Worth County High School returned from spring break, they arrived at school to find a police state had taken over. The sheriff and his deputies — with no probable cause — detained and illegally searched every single child in the school, all 900 of them. More than 40 cops from five other law enforcement agencies participated in the raid — a handful of those cops were apparently sexual predators.

When kids went home that day to tell their parents what happened, naturally, they were furious as it is a gross violation of the children’s 4th Amendment rights.

“It’s essentially a fourth amendment violation,” said Begnaud. “It’s 900 illegal searches, suspicion-less pat downs, suspicion-less searches.”

Naturally, Sheriff Jeff Hobby is standing by this rights violation on a massive scale, noting that as long as a school administrator was present, the search of the children was legal.

Apparently, in the sheriff’s mind, school administrators can usurp the constitutional rights of children in favor of unlawful police searches.

But school officials and the student rule book disagree.