Felonious Junk

The courageous Mercelo and Carolyn Ferrari. Courtesy WXIA-TV

The very same Gwen Stokes who is indicted by her own words and inaction in the posting just below this one has had major troubles in the past, and not too long ago.

In this article by WXIA reporters, Stokes accuses the parents of a physically abused autistic boy named Stefan Ferrari of a felony when she finds out they secretly recorded the abuse their son endured. (Carolyn, the mom, sewed a microphone into the shirt of the little boy as he trundled off to the state-run facility where he had been placed by the APS Program for Exceptional Children).

Here's an excerpt:

"...just three weeks after the incident, Atlanta Public School employee Gwen Stokes...told the Ferraris that their audio taping of Stefan's day at school was illegal. An argument started --

"It's a felonious taping," Stokes said.

"That's your opinion," said an unidentified adult's voice.

"Show me the statute! Show me," demanded Marcelo Ferrari.

"I'm sorry, you're saying it's a felony?" said Carolyn Ferrari.

"I didn't say it's a felony," said Stokes.

"You said felonious," the Ferraris both said.

"It is," Stokes replied.


No, it isn't. Georgia is one of the many states that permit one-party consent for video recordings, meaning that the Ferraris were well within their rights to record what happened to their 11-year-old boy.

So it's troubling that Stokes would accuse them of breaking the law.

It's even more troubling that she would say their act was felonious, but also say she didn't consider it a felony. That makes me think Gwen Stokes doesn't know what the word "felonious" means and was using it as a synonym for "criminal" or "against the rules."

Not only is she dangerously unaware of the law, her behavior in this incident and the one in the next post you'll read suggest she lacks the intellectual capacity to hold a position as important as "compliance coordinator" in a special-ed program, where the rules and laws are extremely complicated.

But let's put all of that aside for a moment. Isn't the most troubling part of all of this the fact that when confronted with irrefutable evidence the child in question was physically abused, Gwen Stokes' first reaction was to try to block the evidence from consideration?

How utterly unethical.