Eric Echols, the son of KREM’s “Women at Work” Monday night talk show host, Virginia Echols, is due to face trial in the Catoosa County, Georgia, on allegations that Echols, a private investigator and President/CEO of The LPS Group Inc., who also operated Echols Consulting in Belize City, had allegedly threatened persons linked with the sensational Tonya Craft child molestation case.
A school teacher at the time of the allegations, Craft, who was later acquitted, is reportedly seeking $25 million in damages against her accusers. Her defense team had hired Echols to help clear her name. During hours of taped recordings with a father of one of Craft’s accusers, Echols expressed the view that Craft had been a victim of a witch-hunt.
In an interview with Channel 3, WRCB, posted on their website, Echols recounted: “I was arrested in the court proceeding.” This was two weeks after he attempted to serve a court subpoena on Sandra Lamb, mother of one of Craft’s accusers, in July 2009.
Confronting Echols as he was videotaping the exchange with his cell phone, Lamb said: “But if you had a little girl that someone molested… Why don’t you shove it [the phone] up your black [expletive]?”
Echols, a forensic interviewer, was later charged with three counts of influencing a witness with threats. One of the accusers is the father of another girl, who had reportedly accused Craft, in investigations where (allegedly) neither of her parents was present.
However, the father, according to hours of conversations taped with Echols’ cell phone, did not want to pursue the matter – whether the allegations are true or false. He, having been a victim of sexual abuse himself, did not want his child to suffer the court ordeal.
Eric Echols said he thinks authorities stopped him by arresting him because of what he uncovered in the recorded conversations.
Fortunately for him, Echols, a member of the Certified Forensic Interviewers (CFI) Networking Group, taped his encounters – he said for this specific reason, because of the chances of being accused during the course of his work.
He is due to go to trial in September; if convicted on the charges, however, he could do prison time and additionally, his P.I. license could be revoked.
“Naturally as his mother, I am VERY worried about Eric’s current situation,” Virginia Echols told Amandala. “My first reaction to this whole thing was to ask him, ‘Who’s messing with my baby?’ ‘You want me to put in a call?’
“At the same time, as an African-American woman, I am angry to know that white folks in the South are still trying to step on the Black man – that the injustice will never end. BUT, I have faith that God will provide His grace, mercy and protection upon Eric. As I continue to read, the updates on the case, I know and trust that this is an experience to move Eric to become a greater being.”
Ms. Echols also commented: “I have always been the kind of mother that comes to the aid of my sons, especially when they are doing what is right and just. I have always taught them to be strong Black men, to stand up for themselves, and to never quit when they believe they can do whatever.”
In an interesting turn of events, four judges in the circuit two weeks ago signed an order of recusal from the Echols trial, and Associate Deputy Magistrate Anthony Peters, the judge who had signed Echols’ arrest warrant, was last week hauled off in handcuffs (but not arrested and charged) in a confrontation with his superior, the Chief Magistrate, amid investigations for unspecified allegations and remains in temporary leave.
(Eric Echols is also the author of A Fisherman and the Catch: Catching the Right Woman, which he published under the pen name, Ric D. Harris.)