رئيس البلدية السابق (جوزيف كيلي) يواجه سبعة تهمة اتهام الأطفال بعد استقالة المكتب

Climax, Georgia, has about 200 people, a city hall that can be missed if you blink, and one mayor’s chair. Joseph Melvin Kelly held that chair until a Georgia Bureau of Investigation case made the chair impossible. On May 31, 2025, the Decatur County Sheriff asked GBI for help. That night Joseph Kelly, then 38, was charged with two counts of child molestation. Natalie Kelly, 44, was charged with two counts of cruelty to children in the second degree. Both were booked into the Decatur County Jail. Both posted bond — $55,400 for him, $27,700 in later local reporting for her — and walked out.

He resigned as mayor on June 2. مقاطعة مقاطعة (ديكاتور) التي كانت تستخدمه، جعلته طليقاً القصة لم تنتهي في صورة الحجز لقد نما

لائحة الاتهام التي ضاعفت الملف

On August 13, 2025, a Decatur County grand jury returned seven counts against the former mayor: five of child molestation, one of enticing a child for indecent purposes, and one of violation of oath by a public officer. The ما بعد الفوضى reported that the indictment described alleged conduct with two girls under 16. Four molestation counts attached to one victim and alleged indecent contact between August 2022 and August 2023. The second girl was named in a molestation count and the enticing count, with a window running from late May 2023 into May 2024. The AEGIS Alliance is not reprinting graphic charging language. The charge names and the public-office count are the point.

Kelly was booked again on August 22, 2025. Attorney Jami Lewis filed a waiver of arraignment and a not-guilty plea on August 21. South Georgia Judicial Circuit District Attorney Joe Mulholland has the prosecution. A trial date of November 10, 2025, was set on the local calendar, with pretrial motions due in September and a hearing in October. Public reporting since that calendar setting has not produced a published verdict. Until a jury speaks, the charges remain allegations. That is the legal line. It is not a civic comfort.

العمدة الذي يعمل أيضاً في نظام مدرسي هو بالضبط الشخص الذي يتم تدريبه على عدم الاشتباه به وهذا هو السبب في أن GBI، وليس المكتب المحلي، أجرى أول مقابلات. The النشرة الصحفية GBI قال المأمور طلب المساعدة على إدعاءات أن جوزيف كيلي كان لديه اتصال جنسي مع العديد من القُصّر عملاء ومحققو الشريف قاموا بالاعتقالات في نفس اليوم

الذي يجلس على الكرسي الآن

Council member and mayor pro-tem Vanessa Martin stepped into the vacancy. Climax still has to pass ordinances, keep the water on, and look visitors in the eye while the circuit court does its work. A town that small does not get to treat an indictment as someone else’s problem. Every grocery line already knows the last name.

عدّة (ناتالي كيلي) الوحشيّة تظلّ مساراً منفصلاً للشحن من لائحة الاتهام السبعة ضدّ زوجها ويُفترض أن كلاهما بريئين بتهمة غير مقصودة. بوند لا يعني أن الملف مغلق هذا يعني أن قاضياً قام بتحديد رقم وشخصين بالغين وقعا على الأوراق

The school-district angle is the part small towns try to forget first. Employment in a school system is not a decoration on a mayoral bio. It is access. When the district later confirmed Kelly was no longer on the payroll, that was the minimum response, not a conclusion. Parents who want a confidential line can use the Childhelp hotline at 1-800-422-4453.

النمط هو عنوان العمل

Mayors arrested on crimes against children are not a Georgia novelty. The running U.S. list of local officials charged since 2021 is a grim civic weather map. Climax is small enough that one indictment is the whole forecast. Readers who follow this beat on The AEGIS Alliance already know the shape from files such as the (هاردي)، (آركانساس)، قضية رئيس الشرطة الأكبر سناً (جورجيا) تدغدغ ذلك- تغيير لقب العمل. خرق الثقة لا

What makes the Climax file distinct is the pairing of counts. The state is not only alleging harm to children. It is alleging Kelly broke the promise that came with the gavel. Violation of oath by a public officer is the charge that turns a private crime into a public one. It says the office itself was part of the injury.

هذه الزاوية الجديدة تستحق التمسك بها بينما تزحف المرفأ حجز في حسابين في ليلة السبت يمكن أن يبدو مثل فضيحة محلية مشروع قانون حقيقي من سبعة محاسبين يضيف حكم المحكمة يقول أن هيئة المحلفين الكبرى سمعت بما فيه الكفاية لمعاملة رئيس العمدة كجزء من الجريمة المزعومة وليس فقط الخلفية

كيف تستوعب المدينة 200 شخص قضية كهذه

Climax sits in Decatur County, near Bainbridge, in a corner of southwest Georgia that does not generate national cable segments unless a mugshot travels. The first weekend of June 2025 it did. WALB, WTXL, and the GBI wire moved the names. City council issued a statement. The school system issued a statement. Then the cameras left and the court calendar took over.

That is when most coverage dies. It should not. Child-sex cases against officials fail in public memory for the same reason they succeed in private rooms: the defendant is the person neighbors already trust. The oath count exists because Georgia law recognizes that trust as an instrument. If the state proves the molestation counts, the oath count is the civic receipt. If the state fails, the town still has to live with the fact that its mayor and a school employee spent a night in the county jail on those allegations.

The AEGIS Alliance is not going to fill the silence with invented courtroom drama. There is no published verdict to announce. There is a GBI opening, a resignation, a firing, a grand-jury true bill, a not-guilty plea, and a trial setting that local papers put on the page. Those are the facts that survive a rewrite.

الناس الذين يريدون معالجة هذا كقصة حزبية سيحاولون وحماية الطفل ليست منبراً للحزب. إنه الطابق نفس الطابق يظهر في تغطية الجريمة عندما تكون شارة أو بركة أو ملاحة مدرسية في وثيقة الشحن الفناء هو المشدد الأطفال سبب وجود الملف

Kelly is no longer the mayor. He is a defendant with an oath-violation count sitting next to five molestation counts and an enticing count. Natalie Kelly remains a defendant on the cruelty charges that came out of the same weekend. The town of Climax remains a town of about 200 people who did not ask to become a case study.

Watch the South Georgia Judicial Circuit docket. Watch whether Mulholland’s office takes the seven counts to a jury or resolves them another way. Watch whether the cruelty case against Natalie Kelly moves on its own track. Do not watch for rumors. The public record is already ugly enough without inventing extra scenes.

وإلى أن يصدر حكم، يكون العنوان الرئيسي الوحيد الصادق هو الذي يسند الوثائق: عمدة سابق، وموظف مدرسي سابق، وزوجة ما تبقى جميعها في النظام بعد تحقيق في مكتب المدعي العام الذي بدأ لأن عمدة الشرطة لم يرغب في التعامل مع المقابلات وحدها.