Bail granted to suspect in beating
By
Beth Warren
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/05/08
The mother of a celebrity fitness trainer critically injured when he was beaten in a Midtown parking lot made an emotional plea to a judge Friday to think of her comatose son before granting bail to a suspect.
Patricia Bonhomme told Fulton County Magistrate Richard Hicks that her only son, Darius Miller, 41, nearly died when his heart stopped, but doctors were able to bring him back.
Doctors at Emory Crawford Long Hospital have told the family Miller may never come out of his vegetative state, Bonhomme said.
"I sit there watching my son suffer," the mother said. "This violence has to stop. My son is lying there fighting for his life with tubes down him."
Hicks told the victims' mother, "I feel for you," but under Georgia law, he had to grant bail to Apollo Holmes, who has no criminal record. He set it at $100,000.
Holmes, 24, is charged with aggravated assault in the attack on Miller.
Accounts differ regarding what happened the night of Dec. 16 outside two popular Peachtree Street nightclubs. One thing that is known is that Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's two daughters, Kai Franklin Graham, 35, and Kali Jamilla Franklin, 29, were present.
In one version, witnesses said a man turned his video camera on Graham, Franklin and a third, unidentified woman, and Miller, a friend of the mayor's daughters, asked him to stop. At that point, witnesses said, about 10 men attacked Miller.
Page Pate, an attorney for 01 Entertainment, a party promoter filming an event at one of the clubs, has told a different story. He said witnesses told him the fight started after the three women became upset when they thought someone was videotaping them leaving a club about 2:30 a.m.
Miller stepped in and tried to take the video camera as several men crowded around him, Pate said. A scuffle ensued, and Miller ended up striking his head on the pavement, the attorney said.
Holmes' attorney, Bruce Harvey, brought in several witnesses who were ready to testify. The defendant's newborn son also was brought to court.
But Hicks opted not to hear from the supporters. Besides granting bail to Holmes, the judge assigned him a 6 p.m. curfew and ordered him to live with his mother in Mableton.
Holmes will continue his job at a rug manufacturing plant but cannot keep working nights as a front-desk security guard at a condominium due to the curfew, Harvey said.
Fulton prosecutor Jack Barrs said outside court that the case remains under investigation.
"There are other arrests coming," Barrs said without elaborating.