Lingering Charge Dismissed Against Commissioner Boyd

A judge has dismissed a charge of attempted extortion against Hamilton County District 8 Commissioner Tim Boyd.

Judge Andrew Freiberg’s order was filed on Dec. 20.

Boyd was indicted in April of 2018 and accused of threatening his campaign opponent Brent Lambert, who was then Mayor of East Ridge. Lambert was challenging the two-term incumbent in the Republican Primary.

Boyd’s trial in October 2018, ended in a mistrial, after Judge Freiberg threw out the extortion charge. The attempted extortion charge deadlocked the jury.

At the time, Boyd characterized the indictment as as politically motivated and contended that Lambert’s taping of telephone conversations with Boyd where Boyd suggested Lambert drop out of the race was a campaign strategy employed by his opponent.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.