GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A bondsman can return to work after winning a yearslong legal battle against a metro Atlanta sheriff.
Channel 2 Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson reports from Lawrenceville where a judge ruled the sheriff stepped over the line when he pulled a man’s license.
“All he has wanted is to get back to work,” said Luke Boggs of Boggs, Cowan & Fargione.
The offices at The Bondsman sit dark and empty, ever since the sheriff pulled owner John Nevil’s license five years ago.
He had written bonds in Gwinnett County since 1999, until the day it all stopped.
“But he has not been able to do the job that he has done for most of his career for 20 years,” Boggs said.
Sheriff Keybo Taylor revoked Nevil’s license in March of 2021, saying he owed the county money when his clients skipped court.
But attorney Luke Boggs says his client had more than half a million dollars in the bank and paid those debts off without even touching it.
“To us seemed like he manufactured a rule to find a way to get rid of Mr. Nevil’s company,” Boggs said.
This month, Judge David Irwin agreed, ruling the sheriff had no legal right to pull the license and ordered Nevil back to work.
Taylor has said for years he was thinning the county’s bonding companies but it’s led to controversy before.
A 2019 video appeared to record him linking support to who gets to keep bonding: “If folks don’t support me, I’m not going to let them bond.”
He later said those words were taken out of context.
The GBI investigated him for extortion, but the state closed the case in 2023 without filing charges.
Nevil is already filing the paperwork to reopen.
“They cannot pick and choose who can get a license,” Boggs said.
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