Around Town: ‘No Mas!’: KSU’s Papp clams up on illegals case

by Otis Brumby, Bill Kinney, Joe KirbyAround Town columnists

May 11, 2010
Otis Brumby, Bill Kinney, Joe Kirbyslideshow

NO HABLA INGLES? In further efforts to get to the bottom of the Jessica Colotl story, AT on Monday requested a sit-down interview with Dr. Dan Papp, president of Kennesaw State University, and Colotl herself. Colotl, 21, is an illegal immigrant who has apparently lived in the U.S. since she was a child and was a senior at Kennesaw State, before a traffic stop on campus – and her inability to provide a valid driver’s license – landed her in jail.

AT asked the university to help coordinate the interview with Ms. Colotl, because the address and phone she had given to KSU police and Cobb sheriff’s deputies at the time of her citation and arrest were found – surprise! – to be false.

But after multiple phone and e-mail messages throughout the day with Papp’s staff, we received a copy of the same statement they issued on Friday and this note from Frances Harrison, a university spokeswoman: “Please accept this document as our last and final communications regarding the issue.”

But AT has heard that the Board of Regents, which meets today and tomorrow in Atlanta, may well have something to say about Papp’s efforts to assist Colotl, spring her from an Alabama immigration jail and let her pay in-state tuition. Donald Leeburn, the senior member of the 18-person Regents board, reportedly told an Atlanta pundit on Monday that Papp was “way out of line” and should be reprimanded.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Neal Warren, when asked if Colotl could face new charges for lying about her address and phone number when she was booked into Cobb County Jail on March 30, said in a statement: “I am investigating that possibility, and if she gave false information to one of my deputies, I will take appropriate action.”

HERE