Hill attorney faces severe allegations
by Eric Johnson
(Originally published January 5, 2012)
It reads like one of those bad TV shows set in a good place, and it seemingly confirms the notion that a nice zip code full of respectable people can still be a hotbed of the same headline-grabbing bad behavior usually reserved for the lower rent parts of town.
In this case, the story hits the bulls eye on accounts both tragic and tawdry: Attorney
Joe Neal Jr., president of the Summerville Neighborhood Association, is accused of giving an 18-year-old girl four to five alcoholic drinks and marijuana before he “had carnal knowledge of her without her consent and against her will.”
A 43-year-old lawyer with a certain degree of prominence being accused of plying an 18-year-old with liquor and drugs before having his way with her is plenty salacious, but in Neal’s case it’s not even the whole story. Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call to his Kings Way home the day after the woman reported the incident. It seems Neal’s 23-year-old wife, Caroline Caldwell Neal, allegedly hit and scratched Neal repeatedly in front of his 13-year-old son.
Caroline Caldwell Neal was charged with simple battery, while at press time Neal had not been charged.
Neal is currently in the process of divorcing Caroline Caldwell Neal, and not for the first time. He first filed for divorce on August 30, 2011, just a few months after their May marriage, but voluntarily dismissed the charges 10 days later.
A month after that, he filed again, and the case is currently an active divorce proceeding.
While all this was going on, Neal was also going through custody battle for the 13-year-old son who witnessed the December 21 altercation that sent Caroline Caldwell Neal to the hospital and eventually jail.
While it in no way confirms his guilt, the fact that Neal has been married four times to three different women, the last one 20 years his junior, does make the allegations leveled by the 18-year-old easier to take seriously. It also possibly helps explain the situation with his wife.
Regardless, Neal appears to many to have had a contentious marriage history, especially during the last year or two.
According to court records, Neal was divorced from Jennifer Smalley Neal on July 22, 2010, just a few months before a
Chronicle story quotes both Neal and Caldwell at Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s reelection party on November 3, 2010.
The two were married six months later, in May 2011.
However you look at it, it’s safe to assume the house on Kings Way has been an eventful place to be.
Neal, an Augusta native, is a graduate of Richmond Academy and the son of attorney Joe Neal, Sr.
Off the record, many legal insiders remarked about his headline-grabbing antics as much as they did his aggressive litigation style. Neal started his legal career directly out of the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, when then-District Attorney Danny Craig appointed him as an Assistant District Attorney in 1993.
While at the DA’s office, Neal participated in nearly 100 jury trials before leaving three years later to go into private practice with his father.
That brief association with the DA’s office puts current District Attorney Ashley Wright in a difficult position. Should she choose not to prosecute, for example, it could look like the office he used to work for was giving him a free pass. Should she decide there is enough evidence to make a case against him, it could appear as if there was some kind of inside vendetta against him.
Though Wright declined to comment on how a potential case against Neal might look, should she feel such conflicts are strong enough, it’s likely the case would be sent to the state attorneys office or an adjoining jurisdiction’s prosecutor’s office.
This is not the first time Neal’s association with the DA’s office has come back to affect him, however.
In 1998, just two years after leaving the DA’s office, Neal lashed out against his former boss, Danny Craig, even going so far as trying to get him dismissed from a case involving a landfill manager accused of stealing gravel from the county. Neal alleged prosecutorial misconduct for sending discovery information to the clerk of court, where it could be observed by the press.
The maneuver, he said, “suggests an orchestrated and premeditated attempt by Craig to influence community opinion and thus taint prospective jurors against the defendant.”
Neal’s motion intimated that the
Spirit article written with the information “amounted to trial by media which was made entirely possible by the district attorney’s unusual, unethical and unconstitutional release of discovery material… where he either knew or should have reasonably known it would end up in the media’s hands before trial.”
Neal later subpoenaed reporters from both the
Augusta Chronicle and the
Spirit in order to find out how the reporters knew about the information and to determine the amount of contact they had with Craig. He called the
Spirit story, titled “Scandal at the Dump,” “the most unbelievable article I’ve ever seen during a pending criminal case… it’s the most prejudicial piece of information I’ve ever seen.”
Ironically, Neal’s most recent divorce proceeding against Caroline Caldwell Neal was transferred to the object of all that scorn, now-Judge Danny Craig.
As president of the Summerville Neighborhood Association, Neal made a name for himself with his tough talk on crime. He bragged about arming up after word had gotten out through the email early warning system he championed that Judge Carlisle Overstreet had shot and killed an intruder in his Summerville home.
He is also known for what has been characterized by some as an isolationist policy regarding the Hill.
Despite the fact that the Art Factory’s popular and colorful Art Wall at Wrightsboro Road and Highland is not located within the boundaries of his Summerville neighborhood, he wrote to the
Spirit complaining about not being consulted about the project. The fact that he identified himself as the president of Summerville amused quite a few people, especially given the fact that the home page of his law office website features an inspirational quote by Napoleon Bonaparte.
And then there’s the whole
way of the warrior thing
.
A self-described renaissance man who writes songs, poetry and paints pictures, Neal has been practicing yoga since 2004, and the warrior motif is featured prominently throughout his website, if not his life. The warrior tagline even doubles as the tag to his SL 550 Mercedes.
More notably, however, Neal’s combative resistance to a Summerville daycare center rankled some for the way it appeared to reinforce the perception many seem to have that Summerville is an enclave of selfish, bigoted people.
Especially memorable was the way he initially handled the situation at the Planning Commission.
A participant remembered how aggressive Neal handled the commissioners, several of whom were black.
“He went in and told them how much his world was nicer than their world, and while some things might be tolerated in their world, he wasn’t going to have it in his.”
Given what’s in front of him, maybe Neal has been given a fight only someone as combative as the warrior for justice could relish.
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A month after that, he filed again, and the case is currently an active divorce proceeding.
While all this was going on, Neal was also going through custody battle for the 13-year-old son who witnessed the December 21 altercation that sent Caroline Caldwell Neal to the hospital and eventually jail.
While it in no way confirms his guilt, the fact that Neal has been married four times to three different women, the last one 20 years his junior, does make the allegations leveled by the 18-year-old easier to take seriously. It also possibly helps explain the situation with his wife.
Regardless, Neal appears to many to have had a contentious marriage history, especially during the last year or two.
According to court records, Neal was divorced from Jennifer Smalley Neal on July 22, 2010, just a few months before a Chronicle story quotes both Neal and Caldwell at Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s reelection party on November 3, 2010.
The two were married six months later, in May 2011.
However you look at it, it’s safe to assume the house on Kings Way has been an eventful place to be.
Neal, an Augusta native, is a graduate of Richmond Academy and the son of attorney Joe Neal, Sr.
Off the record, many legal insiders remarked about his headline-grabbing antics as much as they did his aggressive litigation style. Neal started his legal career directly out of the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, when then-District Attorney Danny Craig appointed him as an Assistant District Attorney in 1993.
While at the DA’s office, Neal participated in nearly 100 jury trials before leaving three years later to go into private practice with his father.
That brief association with the DA’s office puts current District Attorney Ashley Wright in a difficult position. Should she choose not to prosecute, for example, it could look like the office he used to work for was giving him a free pass. Should she decide there is enough evidence to make a case against him, it could appear as if there was some kind of inside vendetta against him.
Though Wright declined to comment on how a potential case against Neal might look, should she feel such conflicts are strong enough, it’s likely the case would be sent to the state attorneys office or an adjoining jurisdiction’s prosecutor’s office.
This is not the first time Neal’s association with the DA’s office has come back to affect him, however.
In 1998, just two years after leaving the DA’s office, Neal lashed out against his former boss, Danny Craig, even going so far as trying to get him dismissed from a case involving a landfill manager accused of stealing gravel from the county. Neal alleged prosecutorial misconduct for sending discovery information to the clerk of court, where it could be observed by the press.
The maneuver, he said, “suggests an orchestrated and premeditated attempt by Craig to influence community opinion and thus taint prospective jurors against the defendant.”
Neal’s motion intimated that the Spirit article written with the information “amounted to trial by media which was made entirely possible by the district attorney’s unusual, unethical and unconstitutional release of discovery material… where he either knew or should have reasonably known it would end up in the media’s hands before trial.”
Neal later subpoenaed reporters from both the Augusta Chronicle and the Spirit in order to find out how the reporters knew about the information and to determine the amount of contact they had with Craig. He called the Spirit story, titled “Scandal at the Dump,” “the most unbelievable article I’ve ever seen during a pending criminal case… it’s the most prejudicial piece of information I’ve ever seen.”
Ironically, Neal’s most recent divorce proceeding against Caroline Caldwell Neal was transferred to the object of all that scorn, now-Judge Danny Craig.
As president of the Summerville Neighborhood Association, Neal made a name for himself with his tough talk on crime. He bragged about arming up after word had gotten out through the email early warning system he championed that Judge Carlisle Overstreet had shot and killed an intruder in his Summerville home.
He is also known for what has been characterized by some as an isolationist policy regarding the Hill.
Despite the fact that the Art Factory’s popular and colorful Art Wall at Wrightsboro Road and Highland is not located within the boundaries of his Summerville neighborhood, he wrote to the Spirit complaining about not being consulted about the project. The fact that he identified himself as the president of Summerville amused quite a few people, especially given the fact that the home page of his law office website features an inspirational quote by Napoleon Bonaparte.
And then there’s the whole way of the warrior thing.
A self-described renaissance man who writes songs, poetry and paints pictures, Neal has been practicing yoga since 2004, and the warrior motif is featured prominently throughout his website, if not his life. The warrior tagline even doubles as the tag to his SL 550 Mercedes.
More notably, however, Neal’s combative resistance to a Summerville daycare center rankled some for the way it appeared to reinforce the perception many seem to have that Summerville is an enclave of selfish, bigoted people.
Especially memorable was the way he initially handled the situation at the Planning Commission.
A participant remembered how aggressive Neal handled the commissioners, several of whom were black.
