Two imprisoned Georgia men say they were wrongly convicted and blame the same informant
Sonny Bharadia and Erik Heard are serving life sentences in Georgia for different crimes. Both say Sterling Flint wrongly incriminated them.
An informant who has spent most of the last three decades in and out of lockups has helped send two men to prison for life in separate cases in Georgia — and is now a target of lawyers who say he made false claims in an attempt to spare himself time behind bars.
Sterling Flint, 54, was a key witness against Sonny Bharadia, who was found guilty of a 2001 sexual assault near Savannah. Flint testified against Bharadia as part of a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge related to the crime. Flint’s DNA has since been found on a glove used by the attacker.
In 2009, six years after Bharadia’s conviction, Flint was taken into custody outside Atlanta and questioned about a load of suspected stolen goods in a car he was driving. Unsolicited, Flint provided an incriminating statement against Erik Heard, who had just been arrested in the fatal shooting of a young mother. Flint offered to obtain more information if he was released on bond. Flint later disavowed that statement at Heard’s trial, but a jury found Heard guilty.
Lawyers at the Georgia Innocence Project are trying to get Bharadia and Heard freed, saying both cases were deeply flawed. In courtrooms a hundred miles apart, they have made Flint part of their arguments. A judge recently granted Bharadia a new trial; a decision on Heard’s request for a new trial remains pending.
“Sterling Flint has reckless disregard for the truth and he has reckless disregard for the consequences for what he says, which makes him extremely unreliable,” said Olivia Vigiletti, a lawyer who volunteers with the Georgia Innocence Project.
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