By Rebecca Gaunt

Three Republicans on the Cobb County Board of Education must forfeit donations received in their 2024 campaigns from two political action committees created by a former Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP attorney, Jonathan Crumly, following a ruling by the Georgia State Ethics Commission Thursday.

John Cristadoro, Randy Scamihorn, and Brad Wheeler all received the legal maximum in contributions from the Freeman Mathis & Gary law firm, as well as the two other companies that were found to be the same entity by the Commission.

Cobb Children First, Inc. and Business Supporting Schools, Inc. were created on the same day and list the same mailing address on campaign reports. Crumly is listed as the registered agent for both. 

Seth Levi of New Southern Majority IE PAC filed the complaint.

“The evidence speaks for itself — there are multiple points of overlap between the three corporate donors, and all the money donated by these entities should be forfeited to the state,” said Levi in a news release. “School board members Wheeler, Cristadoro and Scamihorn owe the families and voters in Cobb County an explanation on how all three of them happened to miss multiple donors sending nearly identical checks from the exact same address down to the suite number for the maximum contribution amount. There are too many red flags here to ignore or dismiss this as an unfortunate coincidence.” 

Cristadoro, Scamihorn, and Wheeler did not respond to the Courier’s requests for comment.

New Southern Majority was established in 2022 by the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of the SPLC. The SPLC has previously endorsed Democratic candidates for the Cobb school board and tangled with the district in court on multiple occasions.

The complaint alleged that the three entities exceeded the $3,300 campaign finance contribution limit when they cumulatively donated $9,900 to all three candidates in their primaries in May 2024, and to Wheeler and Scamihorn for the general elections in October 2024. The donations were made on the same dates.

A second allegation points out that the dates of the May donations to Wheeler and Scamihorn were altered from one campaign finance report to the next. 

“If the first donations were made after May 21, then the second round of donations to Wheeler and Scamihorn in the general election would have further exceeded campaign finance contribution limits. Candidate committees may only receive up to $3,300 from a donor in primaries and then again in general elections,” wrote NSM in its statement.

The Commission required that contributions in excess of the $3,300 limit be forfeited to the state by the school board members, but the amounts were reduced based on current funds in their campaign accounts. Scamihorn forfeited $13,200, Cristadoro $6,600, and Wheeler $5,000. 

Cobb Children First and Business Supporting Schools were fined $5,000 each, but neither Crumly nor Freeman Mathis & Gary were fined.

A summary of the complaint with links to documentation is available here: December 2025 Cobb County Ethics Complaint Summary.

The district’s relationship with Freeman Mathis & Gary has previously been under scrutiny because of its campaign donations to board members who approved hiring the firm in 2023 to intervene and defend the new voting maps in a redistricting lawsuit that alleged they were racially gerrymandered. The SPLC was one of the filing parties for the lawsuit.

Former state representative Earl Ehrhart is the managing director of government relations at Freeman Mathis & Gary. In 2021, Ehrhart was consulted by the district, and his then-firm, Taylor English, was hired for the creation of those same maps.

Scamihorn, who was serving as board chair at the time, denied Ehrhart’s involvement in creating the maps and said he was unaware of Ehrhart’s role at Taylor English when the board approved the contract 4-3 in August 2021. However depositions taken for the lawsuit showed that Scamihorn and Crumly met with Ehrhart to discuss the maps three months prior to the vote.

Read more here: Secrecy dominated Cobb school board redistricting process, court documents show – Cobb Courier

In 2021, Republican board member David Chastain was also required to return funds and fined for accepting contributions beyond the legal limit from state Rep. Ginny Ehrhart (wife of Earl) and Crumly.