Accused Man Sneaks Out Of Court Before Judgement, Learns He’s Free On TV

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A Georgia man who sneaked out of a courtroom — and vanished for days — right before a jury found him not guilty for fraud has surfaced after seeing he was a free man on the news. “I felt kind of stupid. I really did,” Saladin Ghani, 50, told the Daily News on Tuesday. “I panicked and then I started laughing. I couldn’t believe it. I just said, ‘There is a God. God is real.'” Ghani was facing 20 years in prison on charges of identity fraud and theft after his neighbor accused him of stealing $7,000.

He was nearing the end of his two-day trial in DeKalb County Courthouse on Thursday when fear took over and caused him to flee, he said. “My mind was going crazy,” the Decatur man said. “I’m looking at the jury, and the jury don’t know nothing. I told myself, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ I have so much at stake.” Ghani told his attorney, Scott Smith, that he needed to go to the bathroom during a recess break.

The defendant never came back. A judge told Smith to go find Ghani after about 15 minutes had passed. Deputies were sent out to scour the property for him. But they all came back empty-handed. “He beelined it out of the courthouse. We looked for him in the parking lot, couldn’t find him,” Smith told the News. “He was gone.” The trial continued without Ghani in the defendant’s chair. Moments later, he was found not guilty of both charges.

But he couldn’t be reached for days to hand down the good news of his innocence because he ditched his phone on the run. “I threw my phone out the window,” he said, laughing.

New York Daily News.