On Thursday, an attorney for Hamilton County Commissioner Tim Boyd filed for extortion charge against the commissioner to be dismissed in Hamilton County Criminal Court.

Lee Davis, Boyd’s attorney, wrote in the filing that the recorded conversations that Boyd had with East Ridge Mayor Brent Lambert, Boyd’s political opponent in the Republican Primary, is protected speech.

“Boyd as a political candidate and citizen, has the right guaranteed him under the Tennessee and United State Constitution to express himself politically,” Davis wrote in the filing. “He like Lambert has the right to speak directly, forcefully, and unsparingly about a political opponent, either in a mailing like Lambert chose to do or directly to the man as Boyd chose to do.”

Lambert unsuccessfully challenged Boyd for the District 8 seat on the Hamilton County Commission. Early in the campaign, Boyd contacted an attorney for Lambert’s business to tell him that Boyd’s campaign team had damaging information that may be released concerning Lambert. The attorney suggested that Lambert telephone Boyd to find out the nature of the information.

Commissioner Tim Boyd

Lambert recorded two conversations in which he believed Boyd  threatened him. He took those  recorded conversations to the Hamilton County District Attorneys office. The DA’s office requested the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to investigate the incident. Upon the conclusion of the-two-week investigation, District Attorney Neal Pinkston presented the evidence to a grand jury which returned an indictment against Boyd on one count of extortion, a felony.

Boyd turned himself in and was booked at the Hamilton County Jail. He posted a $2,500 bond and was released.

Lambert held two news conferences in which he told the media that he was threatened by Boyd during the recorded conversations. In one news conference, Lambert played the recordings to the media.

In the recordings Boyd never explained what damaging information he had on Lambert. During one press conference when asked what that information may have been, Lambert said that all he could think of was that East Ridge News Online had reported in early February that his campaign had received $5,000 in campaign contributions in June of 2017. He said those contributions – from the Exit 1 LLC developers and two others – were all perfectly legal.

Boyd is set for arraignment on Friday before Judge Andrew Freiberg, a special appointed judge from Bradley County.

Under the indictment, it claims that Boyd coerced Lambert to gain an advantage. One local attorney not affiliated with the case said the coercion would have been the fact that Boyd had damaging information on Lambert. The advantage would be a political opponent dropping out of a political race.

In Attorney Davis’s filing, he writes that Lambert “engaged in a calculated strategy.” Lambert secretly recorded the conversations then took them to the law. 

Mayor Brent Lambert

“Within days of Lambert making his complaint, and on the day before early voting started, an indictment was obtained and splashed all over the media,” Davis wrote in the dismissal document.

“Lambert then in dramatic fashion, and unbeknownst to the District Attorney, threatened to release the tape recordings through an orchestrated press conference. He did so to seek an advantage over Boyd. In fact, Lambert held a press conference for invited guests at East Ridge Town Hall.”

On the Saturday before election day Lambert mailed out political fliers that were negative toward Boyd to “seek an advantage over Boyd,” Davis wrote.

Davis noted in the filing that “all of Lambert’s negative campaign literature, as obnoxious and repugnant as it may be, is protected campaign speech.”

Davis argued in the filing that Boyd, the political candidate, has the constitutionally protected right to express himself politically.

“Boyd has every right to publish or withhold the information he discovered on his political opponent Lambert,” Davis wrote. “So too does he have the right to discuss the consequences of the release of this information directly with Lambert.

“A discussion with Lambert concerning the facts that may surface in the election is fully protected political speech,” Davis wrote.