Investigator accused of giving contraband to inmate agrees to settlement

JACKSON, Georgia – Lily Engleman can finally get closure tonight after a five-year battle with the Georgia Department of Corrections.

“It had nothing to do with me … it was just about who I represented in my job, and that was really, really scary,” Engleman said.

Engleman was entrusted with representing Ricky Dubose in a high-profile case.

He was facing a double murder trial for killing two prison guards on a transport bus in Putnam County.

A state Department of Corrections investigator falsely claimed that surveillance video showed Engleman slipping DuBose something illegal.

She was arrested during this meeting in September.

“I felt attacked because I knew it was a scam,” Engleman said. “Of course, I knew I had never given my client anything. I knew they wouldn't find anything on him.”

As a result of the charges, Engleman was fired from the Georgia Capital Defender's Office.

“There was this understanding that I had no control over my own life,” Engleman said.

Prosecutors dropped smuggling charges against her in 2021.

In February of this year, the same investigator admitted to a judge that the video did not show her handing contraband to Dubose.

“The judge really backed him into a corner and forced him to say, 'I admit the video doesn't show that,'” Engleman said. “It's frustrating to me that he couldn't do the right thing until this federal judge literally forced him to do it.”

Engleman's law firm says the investigator also used false evidence and withheld other evidence that would have supported her case, calling it a “shocking abuse of power” by the Department of Corrections.

Now that the case is closed, Engleman has a message for others, especially law enforcement.

“It's not OK to arrest someone for doing their job just because you don't like the job they're doing,” Engleman said. “I think most people who work as criminal defense attorneys feel that kind of pervasive hatred to some degree, especially people who work on murder cases where the death penalty is being sought because those cases always get quite a bit of attention. People who work as criminal defense attorneys feel like we're really good citizens. [and] that we are defending the constitutional rights of the people and that there is great honor in that.”

Engleman says she would probably still be working for the death penalty if this incident had never happened.

She has since renewed her social work license and is actively working as a sentencing specialist in federal felony cases.