One of Donald Trump‘s co-defendants was spending a second night in Fulton County jail on Friday after he told the court he could not afford a lawyer, and was deemed a flight risk and denied bail.
Harrison Floyd, a former U.S. Marine and mixed martial arts fighter, is accused of participating in a scheme to pressure an election worker to falsely admit to voting fraud.
On Thursday he surrendered at Fulton County jail in Atlanta, but – unlike the other 18 – the procedure to set bail was complicated by his arrest in Maryland in May on charges of assaulting FBI agents who tried to serve him with a subpoena.
He spent Thursday night in the infamous jail, and on Friday appeared before Judge Emily Richardson via videolink to plead with her to release him, without paying bail.
Harrison Floyd’s mugshot was taken on Friday, when he handed himself in. He spent Thursday and Friday night in Fulton County jail
Floyd appeared virtually before Judge Emily Richardson on Friday
Floyd appeared via videolink from jail on Friday, but the judge refused to release him
Floyd told the judge that it typically cost between $40,000 to $100,000 just to retain a private lawyer to fly to Georgia.
‘I cannot afford an attorney for something like this,’ he said, telling Richardson that he did not want to put his family in debt.
Richardson told Floyd that he could either hire a lawyer or represent himself.
It was not immediately clear why Floyd was told he could not be represented by a public defender.
Generally, defendants must meet certain financial requirements to qualify.
Floyd is accused of pressuring poll worker Ruby Freeman to confess to voter fraud crimes she didn’t commit. He allegedly worked alongside a former publicist of Kanye West, Trevian Kutti, who is also charged
Trevian Kutti was beaming in her mugshot, taken on Friday
Floyd (left) speaks to Republican activists Paris Dennard (center) and Kamilah Prince (right) in 2020
For now, Floyd will remain in Fulton County Jail, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for violence and unsanitary conditions, as well as 15 inmate deaths last year.
One of those was a man whose family says in a lawsuit was ‘eaten alive’ by bedbugs.
Floyd had maintained that he was not a flight risk, but he was told that the issue of the bond would ultimately be decided by Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case.
‘There are grounds for bond to be denied at this point,’ Richardson said.
‘I’m going to go ahead and find that you are a risk to commit additional felonies and a potential risk to flee the jurisdiction.
‘So I’m going to deny bond, but a full consideration of bond will be addressed.’
All 18 other defendants in the case have been released after posting bond, records show.
Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for Kayne West, and Stephen Lee, a police chaplain from Illinois, were the final two to surrender.
Bail amounts range from $200,000 for Trump to $150,000 for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to $10,000 for Misty Hampton, a former election supervisor in a rural Georgia county who is accused of tampering with voting equipment.
One of those defendants, attorney Sidney Powell, asked the court on Friday for her trial to begin by November 3 at the latest, as is allowed under Georgia law.
She became the second of the 19 to seek a speedy trial: Kenneth Chesebro, seen as the architect of the plan to persuade Mike Pence to deny the January 6 certification of the election, has also exerted his right for a quick trial.
Fani Willis, the district attorney, had originally proposed a March 4 trial date for all 19 defendants, including Trump.
But McAfee has agreed to a separate October 23 trial for Chesebro, who like Powell had asked for an earlier date.
Trump’s legal team has not yet proposed a trial date.
Floyd’s appearance comes after a momentous day in which Trump’s mug shot from the jail was released.
Trump, 77, was captured glaring at the camera in the first such photograph of a former president in U.S. history, yet another extraordinary moment for the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination.
After spending about 20 minutes at the jail on Thursday evening, Trump repeated the claim that Willis’ prosecution – along with the others he faces – is politically motivated.
‘What has taken place here is a travesty of justice,’ he told reporters. ‘I did nothing wrong, and everybody knows it.’
All 19 defendants have now surrendered at Fulton County jail, and all except Floyd have been released
One of the final defendants to surrender, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, turned himself in early on Friday and was released on $100,000 bond, records show.
Trump has not yet entered a plea in the Georgia case.
He has pleaded not guilty in two federal cases accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election and retaining classified documents after leaving office, and to a New York state case linked to hush money payments to a porn star.
Far from damaging his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination, however, the four cases filed against him have only bolstered his standing.
He holds a commanding polling lead in the Republican race to challenge Biden in the November 2024 election.
