(NewsNation) — A Georgia sheriff pleaded guilty to groping Judge Glenda Hatchett, who recalled being so stunned that she froze when the lawman grabbed and squeezed her breast at a hotel bar last year.
According to an arrest warrant, Hatchett reported that Bleckley County Sheriff Kris Coody groped her at the Georgia Sheriffs Association’s winter meeting at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Bar on Jan. 18, 2022.
In an impact statement to the court Monday, Hatchett said that what happened to her “has cut me to the core. … For this man to come up and violate me the way he did is unspeakable.”
Coody pleaded guilty in Cobb County State Court to a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery and was sentenced to a year on probation, news outlets reported. He also resigned from the office he had held since 2017.
In January 2022, Hatchett attended a meeting of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association as the guest of a retired Georgia sheriff who introduced her to several colleagues. One of the sheriffs she met at the convention hotel’s bar outside Atlanta was Coody.
Hatchett said she told Coody she wasn’t sure where his home county was located. The sheriff pointed a finger at her chest, she said, and replied: “In the heart of Georgia.” She said he then repeated those words as he grabbed her left breast and began squeezing and rubbing it. Hatchett said she froze in shock and that it was her host, former DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown, who grabbed Coody’s arm and pulled it away from her.
“I was so angry with myself later, because I didn’t slap him. I didn’t kick him, I was absolutely frozen,” Hatchett said during an appearance, recounting her experience, on Tuesday night’s “Banfield.”
According to Hatchett, Coody initially said he didn’t grope her.
“He said, you know, he didn’t remember and it just went on and on and on. … I want people to understand the gravity of this. … I would encourage people who are victims to seek the help. … I’ve been an advocate. I have been fighting for people’s rights. … But now on the other side of that and when I went to therapy, I was saying to my therapist, why didn’t I? Why didn’t (I) hit him, why not do something? … Victims feel that guilt for not reacting. But it is not uncommon for you just to be frozen, because it’s so unusual and you aren’t expecting it. “
The Associated Press contributed to this report.