Recently the city of Savannah GA has been in the news over some less then well thought out comments made by their local celebrity chef, Paula Deen, but if some inappropriate comments by a chef 20 years ago rates a national news blitz then what is happening in Savannah right now should set off a coverage frenzy not seen since the Penn State story broke.

            In a city that is known as the “Hostess City”, it seems that District 6 Alderman, Tony Thomas, may be taking that moniker to some very unsavory extremes. In September of 2012 a young 28 year old man, Josh Flowers, walked into the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department and leveled some very serious charges at Tony Thomas. Josh alleges that in the summer and fall of 2003, when Tony Thomas was campaigning for his first re-election, Tony Thomas sexually assaulted him. Josh also alleges that Tony Thomas provided him with alcohol and illegal drugs on numerous occasions and used his position on City Council to bully local bars into providing them with alcohol despite Josh being only 18 and 19 at the time of their association. When Josh walked into the SCMPD downtown precinct and sat down with the sex crimes detective, he discovered that instead of taking his first step towards obtaining some kind of resolution, he was instead greeted by a broken system that  failed him then and continues to fail him at the time of this article’s submission.

            The sex crimes detective informed him that the statute of limitations is only 7 years for male victims of sexual assault and in addition to that, males, by definition in the state of Georgia, can not even be raped. Had Josh been a female he would have 15 years to report the same crime but since he was a male, his time was past by 3 years. So out the door Josh was sent with a “Sorry” and rather than follow up on the situation, the Detective just quietly swept it under the rug. This kind of reaction would prove to be all to common in this “hostess city”.

            Josh then attempted to contact members of the media to share what had happened to him and to warn them that the same thing was still going on with new boys being targeted and exploited by Alderman Thomas. Josh was met with a string of people who initially expressed interest but then met with month after month of inaction. The only person who stood by Josh and kept pushing was the private investigator who had accidentally discovered the situation in the first place. The investigator, John Perry, was so horrified by the entire situation that he promised Josh that no matter what, he would do everything in his power to try and find Josh some measure of justice.

            The two spoke often over the next several months and John never gave up trying to get the story out. He spoke with every news agency in town and several that were not in town. He continued to submit Georgia Open Records requests (GORA) and digging into the ever expanding web of corruption and a growing list of names that Alderman Thomas had potentially victimized over the past 13 years in public office. There were multiple allegations of bribery and shady back room deals along with no shortage of allegations of abuse of power by Alderman Thomas. As time passed the dossier that John developed continued to grow and with it his conviction that no one else was going to do anything and that is when the realization dawned on John, that it was up to him to do something.  He had promised Josh that he would seek justice and that meant John was going to have to be the catalyst to bring this about. John realized after nearly countless false starts and delays with other “professional” journalists failing to ever put out a story that he was going to have to step out of the shadows and wade into the fray as a citizen journalist and speak TRUTH to those in positions of power.

            In January of 2013 after much soul searching and many long late night talks with his wife and kids about all their options John stepped up the edge of the proverbial cliff and made a leap of faith. Tired of waiting on those in the “main stream” media John launched a website, www.whoistonythomas.com, where he published just some of the things that had been uncovered about Alderman Thomas over the course of the first six months of the investigation. The site included an interview that John filmed interviewing Josh as he did his best to recall his story about what happened to him when he worked for Alderman Thomas.

            Within 24 hours of the website’s launch, the Chatham County District Attorney, Meg Heap, had reached out to John and asked for a copy of the interview to be delivered to her office for further review. It quickly became apparent that the sex crimes detective had not even seen fit to notify anyone about the allegations made way back in September. The D.A. moved quickly to call in the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) to open an investigation. John was contacted by a GBI agent who took both his statement as well as one from Josh and it seemed at long last the wheels of justice were turning.

            Josh and John had come to accept that Josh may not be the one who was able to see charges brought against Alderman Thomas, but their thinking was now that since there was an open investigation then surely the local media outlets would cover the story of a potential sexual predator sitting on the City Council. In a sane city that would surely have been the case, it seems, however, that Savannah, Georgia is an entirely different kind of crazy. The local paper, the Savannah Morning News, published a story on their front page a couple of weeks after John launched the website. The article did mention that the D.A. had called in the GBI to head up an investigation and that it was unknown how long the investigation would take. The article then seemed to spend more time covering the fact that a website was covering Alderman Thomas rather than digging into the veracity of the charges that were leveled at Alderman Thomas.

            The rest of the local media has remained silent on the issue, despite now several other men coming forward with their own stories of sexual abuse at the hands of Alderman Thomas. At least one station has shot video with another one of Alderman Thomas’ victims willing to go on camera other than Josh, but for whatever reason they have decided not to pursue this story. The question then becomes, how does he still walk free? The answer is simply tragic. The statue of limitations. As previously mentioned males who are sexually abused have only 7 years to come forward. If the abuse occurs before the boys are of “legal” age, which is 16 in the state of Georgia, they have just 7 years from the day they turn 16 to file charges.

            It was just around one year ago that Josh opened up and told his story for the first time of what happened at the hands of Tony Thomas. Now, he is being victimized again by a media who has put protecting a tourist industry ahead of the safety of the young men in their own community. In cases of sexual abuse, those who have been victimized need to be assured that it is safe for them to come forward, doubly so for those who have been victimized by those who are in positions of power. Instead of pursing this story and determining the validity of the charges they have remained silent and their silence has allowed Alderman Thomas to continue to victimize those he is supposed to represent.

Please take the time to visit www.whoistonythomas.com and help by spreading the word.